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TechnoratiI have argued that in the closing stages of a `fascist shift', events cascade. I am hearing about them, even across the globe. Here in Australia I hear from the nation's best-know feminist activist, and former adviser to Paul Keating, Anne Summers, who was also at the time this took place Chair of the Board of Greenpeace International. Summers was detained by armed agents for FIVE HOURS each way in LAX on her way to and from the annual meeting of the board of Greenpeace International in Mexico, and her green card was taken away from her. `I want to call a lawyer', she told TSA agents. `Ma'am, you do not have a right to call an attorney,' they replied. `You have not entered the United States.'
Apparently a section of LAX just beyond the security line is asserted to be `not in the United States' -- though it is squarely inside the airport -- so the laws of the US do not apply. (This assertion, by the way, should alarm any US citizen who is aware of how the White House argued that Guantanamo is not `in the United States' - is a legal no-man's land -- so the laws of the US do not apply.) Toward the end of her second five-hour detention she asked, `Why am I being detained?' `Lady, this is not detention,' the TSA agent told her. `Detention is when I take you to the cells out back and lock you up.'
Last week in Boston, while attending Bioneers by the Bay, I heard that one of the speakers for our event, an environmentalist named Gunter Pauli, was going to miss the time of his scheduled speech; he had been physically taken OFF THE PLANE by TSA agents and had to take a much later flight. More chillingly, the camerawoman doing my interview said that another well-known environmental writer found that his girlfriend was effectively `disappeared' for three days as she sought to enter the US from Canada. Lisa Fithian, an anti-globalization activist, was denied entry across the Canadian border in 2001 and was offered the choice of turning back or being arrested.
A friend emails me a story from USA Today about a 24-year-old college graduate who testified before Congress about her family of immigrants and the difficulties they face; shortly afterward, the entire family was arrested by immigration agents. Another online piece reports that Blackwater is setting up operations along the US/Mexico border and an insightful post on Daily Kos describes how the TSA list will revert from the airlines to the management of the Department of Homeland Security shortly and that by February we may well face the need to apply to the State for permission to travel. If this proposed regulation goes through, we will move from 1931 to about 1934--when the borders started to close-- with the stroke of a pen. Jews in America have hardwired into their DNA a sense of the distinction between those who got out before the borders closed and those who waited a moment too long.
Why should Congress impeach and prosecute this instant, not waiting till February? Why should this impeachment and prosecution be solidly bipartisan? After February it is the leaders on both sides of the aisle -- and the people writing these essays -- who are at most risk of being turned back at the border. People who can't leave in a police state are effectively silenced. And history shows that Republicans are at the exact same risk as Democrats of being violently silenced once liberties are lost. I am reading about IBM's close, profitable involvement with Nazi Germany -- much akin to Prescott Bush's well-documented close and profitable involvement with Nazi Germany through German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen. Right up to the top of the solidly Nazi hierarchy of the IBM affiliate, corporate executives were terrified of taking a wrong step in the eyes of the Party: `There are concentration camps', they would whisper to their US backers. The teenage son of one solid Nazi ally was taken hostage when he resisted Party orders. So alignment with the regime in a police state offers no ultimate protection.
Let us think like business consultants analyzing the decisions of a business that claims it is going to close its door in just a year. What kinds of decisions is it making? Here is a quiz, if you still doubt that we need to shift our thinking and recognize what appears to be 'a paper coup.':
- Is building a US Embassy in Baghdad the size of eighty football fields and at a cost of well more than half a BILLION dollars evidence of short- or long-term thinking?
- These walls would crumble if the next legitimate president independently ends the war. How about defending and expanding the basis for FISA violations at this late stage -- after all, these folks will be gone in a year?
- How about the decision to fight so hard for a US attorney who will defend the view that the President is above the law?
- Why would that matter so much in an administration folding its tents?
- Why the rush to establish Guantanamo as a permanent part of the landscape and even seek money at one point to double its size -- if the next President, a truly independent Republican or Democrat, might just close it down?
- Why the push to expand a war that makes no military or popular sense, rush through military tribunals that the next President might just disband, and, by the way, drum up a fresh new World War III?
- Do the neo-cons advising Giuliani look like a fresh page for an independent, transparent election or an ideological continuity of government in themselves?
- Do these look like the short-term tactics of a fading administration -- or the institutional strategic bases for some kind of new long-term beginning?
- Why work so hard to make sure that the man who defended the infamous "enemy combatant" concept will be the new Attorney General?
Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.' Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, "Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?," that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government. (He also spells out the basis for a rigorously modeled impeachment and criminal prosecution.) Daniel Ellsberg's much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup' has already taken place. Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency -- noting that those worrying about a coup are no longer so marginal. Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans. And Congress belatedly realizes as if waking from a drugged sleep that it might not be okay for the Attorney General to say the President need not obey the law. Congress may realize why Mukasey CAN'T say that `waterboarding is torture' -- the minute he does so he has laid the grounds for Bush, Cheney and any number of CIA and Blackwater interrogators to be tried and convicted for war crimes. They are so keenly aware that what they have been doing is criminal that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 have been drafted specifically to protect them and the torturers and murderers they have directed from criminal prosecution. That is why insisting that Mukasey say that waterboarding is torture is, in spite of the alarming apparent defection of Feinstein and Schumer, an important tactic and even the perfect opening for the impeachment bid that Kucinich is bringing on November 6th to be followed by Congressional investigations into possible criminality.
This is the "Blackwater Tactical Weekly." (Yes, Blackwater has its own weekly e-newsletter.) Look at "Islamist protest in N.Y. - 'Mushroom cloud on way'" -- it is reasonable to speculate that Blackwater is focusing on becoming more active domestically in managing domestic protests and rallies. (Regarding this particular rally, note the repetition of the White House `Mushroom Cloud' sound-bite and other signs bearing current White House talking points, that are attributed to alleged Muslim protesters in New York City. The US has a long history of using agents provocateurs -- people dressed as those they are targeting, who pose as conveying a more violent or threatening message than that of the real group itself or who commit acts of violence to stigmatize the group. The Cointelpro program of the 1970's discredited many rallies in this way. An alleged or infiltrated violent, threatening Muslim rally would be the perfect defensible trigger for a Blackwater response.)
See also that Blackwater may be exploring the management of private flights in US airports because of a threat or `threat' to private aircraft. ("Extremists may target private US planes: TSA.") This entry point to the air travel system would seem defensible -- after all Blackwater personnel do in fact guard airports around the world, for example in Bosnia. The danger is that a bleeding of Blackwater into US airport security in general would affect a coup in essence -- quite quickly and serenely -- even as a coup in fact need not be declared. It is a short step from managing private plane and private airport security to aiding the TSA -- which is a branch of Homeland Security -- and Homeland Security and Blackwater have already worked in alliance with one another in New Orleans. A TSA agent blogged about having signed up for Blackwater -- at ten thousand a month, which is a lot more than TSA agents make now and a real incentive -- but I have no evidence of reverse movement. The White House recently announced that the Watch List and No-Fly List together have 775,000 citizens and that they are adding 20,000 A MONTH. This trend on both sides, if not confronted, points to an easy slide to a paramilitarized domestic flight experience in the US and a routine aggressive searching of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the growth being exponential enough so that being aggressively searched could easily soon become a common experience at airports. Nothing at present prevents Blackwater agents from being deployed to help or replace the TSA domestically. Or from being deployed at the next New York City rally such as the one that is being featured on their website. And airports being the lifeline of freedom, if you are scared to fly or can be bullied, interrogated, tasered or worse when flying, you are no longer free. History shows that there is no easy retroactive movement toward a free society once travel is truly restricted.
The Mukasey hesitation on torture is our cue to call a halt to these crimes. (By the way, strapping victims to boards to prepare them for torture was common at Buchenwald.)
Congress must ask:
- What is torture?
- Has it happened?
- Who ordered it?
- How high up the chain of command does this go?
- And what does our system of laws say about such crimes and those who commit them?
If it takes hearings and possible prosecutions to restore the rule of law and maintain a free society, then it is past time for the hearings to begin.
Naomi Wolf's essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller
Copyright © 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
96 Comments so far
Show AllI am interested by the image of the piscean fish swimming in opposite directions. I am from the UK and over here our newspapers seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping people swimming round in circles by creating false polarisations of views and then inviting us to argue amongst ourselves, thus distracting us from what is going on and how its in our common interest to defend ourselves against it. Broadly speaking the task of the press over the last several decades seems to have been to divide us into 2 camps, one of which argues we need private enterprise to protect us from the excesses of government, and one of which argues we need government to protect us from the excesses of private enterprise. It is only very recently that people have started to notice the convergence of private and state interests and have started pointing out Mussolini's definition of fascism as corporatism. Alarm bells are ringing. The internet has meant that more people from each "camp" are starting to post on one another's forums. In some ways this is obviously good as ideas are getting shared and so on, in other ways it could be just another distraction - if you post a comment outside the "range" of allowable positions for the debate many newspaper sites will just not post the comment. When I say out of range, I don't mean off-topic, btw.
In recent days I've been really scared by what seesm to be a sudden escalation of events in many areas. For exmaple the disappearance of massive sums of money from US banking reserves in just 2 weeks! (Google - youTube, Greenrush capital, US banking crisis).
Further it looks increasingly like my govt is already in the business of trying to extricate itself from yours. In the past I would have been delighted by that - like you guys, I find your govt very scary indeed, but I'm wondering why it is happening so suddenly, and the answers that are suggesting themselves are giving me the creeps! One reason might be we finally paid off the debts we owed from the post ww2 Marshall Plan. But another likely cause, is that my govt, having hung on to the coat tails of the school bully (the Bush administration) for so long have heard a rumours that said bully is now very very sick indeed and thta guys who have been long waiting in the wings are not far from making a takover bid. My govt (I am ashamed to say) is eager to befriend the new school bullies and break ties with the old while trying to save embarrassment. I posted something to this effect on a newspaper site in my own country. The comment of course never made it on to the board.
Over here Brown is selling our country's assets to Chinese and Middle Eastern "investors" as fast as money is disappearing out of your banking reserves. The news forums are full of arguments about multiculturalism gone mad, liberal values versus jingoism, etc etc, ie.. recycling a lot of the arguments of the traditional British left versus right, when it's clear to anyone that's willing to think about it for a minute thta the traditional left and right are dead in the water - that's just not what it's about anymore - but the old arguments wage on and peopel think it really matters to call each other names like "Guardian reading leftie pinko intellectual w*nk" or "Sun reading racist ignorant yobbo thug". In fact a lot of people from both sides are making very valid points in between a lot of the mud slinging, they're frightened for their jobs, homes (those who have homes - our house price bubble effectively meant many hard-working highly skilled Brits still can't afford them), but it is certainly in the interest of the powers that be that we don't join up the dots and realsie that their might be more to unite us than divide us in our struggles. The same goes, i think when people in the UK/US get into arguments about current American versus historical British imperialism. Over here a lot of people do hate "America", but then the America we hate is not the same one you want to protect. It is the one that is destroying the one you want to protect, and too may parts of the world have already suffered at its hands. Yes, too many Americans never spoke up when that was happening, but plenty of you did, and and are willing to, and your governemnt answers with repressive measures against you. My govt is guilty too, and I know they simply do not represent me or the people of my counttry.
Anwya I'm rambling off the point. I am very scared. Look on the web and find the data about the money lost in just 2 weeks from your banking reserves. Look at what my PM is up to. The "leaders" over here seem to be hedging their bets in case something VERY ugly happens in your country, perhaps very soon, and they are alreday selling my country to its replacement puppet masters.
Is it better the devil that we British know (US dominance) or the devil we don't (Chinese and Middle Eastern business interests dominating)? I don't want any more pacts with anymore devils.
I agree with the poster who says we need the help of angels now, we do. I also agree with the poster who quoted that "we are the ones we've been waiting for". Time to shine, time to call on others to shine. We still have a chance, I hope, of not letting it come to what our (quite rational) fears are warning us of.
simonhhh
lol. I liked your response
This is the one time simon I'm praying very hard that your conclusions are wrong. (Nothing personal) I don't really care to see '39 repeated.
dolphin63
"Take a course in persuasive writing" LoL
Late at night my persuasiveness is all washed out, including my spelling abilities...However, over the next 14 months you might find yourself agreeing with my conclusions...
Interview with Naomi is here on antiwar radio:
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/11/03/naomi-wolf/
Folks there a harsh chill sweeping over our nation...I fear what is left of our democracy may not survive the next 14 months.
simonhhh
NOT the same but similar in both had right wing corporatist militaristic kelptocratic oligarch regimes driving fascist policies of interventionist agendas..
I'm assuming you meant "kleptocratic" My dear boy, brevity is not in your vocabulary. An interesting observation but I disagree with your conclusions.
P.S.: Take a course in persuasive writing.
siouxrose, what a great image coupled with analogy. I feel in my heart the validity of your claim. It fits right in with the idea that in this dark time, there is the necessity for thngs to become clear AND polorized. Not to divide us one from another, but to make the way clear, to cut through all the distortions that keep people flailing about impotently. It is not going to be an easy time, and I still maintain that this is a time when it is imperative that we detach from outcomes. All that matters is the here and now and how we co-create every minute of this momentous shift. I believe we knew that when we came in to this earth school this time around, and perhaps, we've experienced similar shifts here?elsewhere? We all need to ask ourselves each and every moment, how does this action/thought feel when tested by my heart's true compass?
And to you Paradigm Shifter, thank you for your wise and heartfelt comments. Eyes wide open to the horror around us, we will still move inexorably to anchor more and more of the Light. It's what we have, and it's what we can do.
mbsmallwood76 said: No one's rights are being denied except those who deserve it.
I was just put through SSSS screening on my way to the Middle East. I'm Irish American and travel in the region frequently for work with a gov't contractor doing international development projects. I recieved special security screening because my passport is full of Arabic stamps and who knows maybe because I post comments to commondreams. So you are telling me I deserve the special screening and going through that hassle and being treated like a terrorist because some idiot screener thinks I'm suspect and that Arab Americans and anyone with dark skin deserves all the hassles they've been through since 911? Sorry that's utter bullshit!!!! I'm sick of the guilty until proven innocent mantra of DHS and the FAA.
rebelnow November 6th, 2007 12:34 am
"Many of the articles and comments lately make reference to Germany in the 1930s's"
dolphin63 November 7th, 2007 12:27 pm
"I haven't noticed over 8 million Americans disappearing in the night"
Both miss the point, I opined it was the Americanized version 2007 of pre Nazi Germany..NOT the same but similar in both had right wing corporatist militaristic kelptocratic oligarch regimes driving fascist policies of interventionist agendas..
According to Naomi Klien's definition of fascism Bu$hCo have implemented all 10 traits..
PS: Alternatively, denial is a far more comfortable position, with much less cognitive dissonance...
reader21
Intersting point but it misses the mark. I haven't noticed over 8 million Americans disappearing in the night and becoming whiffs of ozone and carbon monoxide or being interned in mass graves. The problems you have with the American gov. are nothing in relation to Nazi Germany. They may be corrupt/inept bastards but they sure as heck are not in Adolph's image.
In USA politicians seek to disarm the public. Already on the way in Canada. In UK even olympic gun team not allowed to use guns and have to practice in France but gun crimes up 400%. Guns taken in Australia. Western forces being trained in house to house fighting and high tech person monitoring and perfecting techniques in the middle east. The Supreme Court has with ACLU destroyed Christian influence on ethics and substitued the rule of crudity and corporate rule .. same happening in Canada and UK. . . Private prisons and mini armies beginning. Real forces having much backup support done by private companies, controlling army (an army runs on its supply lines). New UK prime minister plans to introduce new constitution, to get rid of Royal Family and British common law (as Trudeau did in Canada) and refuses referendum to make UK subservient to unelected Common Market and laws. In Canada the new constitution has no provision for private property rights.
GATT and NAFTA have nullified control of finance and laws by elected governments. What a ruddy mess. Hang on to your guns you guys in the States. It is quite obvious that big business financiers no longer need you when they can use slaves in the far east..instead of investing in high tech means of increasing output - which is what happened in the early 1900's and made the USA What it is. And when you finally see the light, they will have Blackwater International to sort you out.
What can be done? Nothing because this experiment "amerika" was bad from the start. Wrapped in your sorry ass butcher's apron of red white and (blue) for the blueblood elites that fed you your Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny diet of Lebensraum poison as you went slaughtering all over the planet for a few bucks more. Obese capitalism at its worst. Small surprise that you have turned into a nation of super-sized pigs feeding on the rest of the planet who still can't look at your puny history (timeline) and recognize the horror of your ongoing genocides and rape of every culture that your elites have set their beady eyes on. Fed on a diet of pap and hubris most of you still think there is something worth saving and that the rest of the planet actually gives a damn as to whether you clean up your act or not.
The rest of the planet is sick of the lies and theater of democracy and so called human rights that now even you folks can no longer mouth with a straight face yourselves. Funny really that it took y'all so long to cotton on, only when the snake began to eat itself did some of you wake from the stupor of your disgusting supremacist exceptionalsism. Humanity wants to see you go the way of the USSR, count on it. We want you disarmed and subdued and your snout out of our affairs. We want your obscene war apparatus aka occupied Palestine and the other 180 oozing puss sore centers of your militarist culture neutered, closed down and all your damn occupation mercenaries sent back to where they came from.
Consider the Bush Cheney junta the good gene taking down a monster that the earth no longer can afford. The only question remaining is whether plague-infected amerika will spoil the rest of the planet as the cancer turns on itself and withers.
I for one thank the gods on high for sending the half-wit Bush and his Batman baddy sidekick Lon Cheney, so quintessentially amerikan, don't you think, cardboard cut-out cartoonish freaks. Finally toon town amerika has shown all humanity the true face of your greed and ignorance.
There is no going back...it is indeed very very personal. Start thinking meltdown or Versailles Treaty!
Everyone decries about all these abuses and injustices. What can be done? If nothing else we must keep talking about them. Not stridently, but calmly and pointedly. Liberals are being painted as hysterical screeches. Remember: If a leader (business or political) finds it in his or her heart to be compassionate and just, then that is a wonder to behold. It just doesn't happen often -usually only in Europe. It's all about power (see your trusty, cranky Nietzsche).
>>Family members were arrested in '39 and some were never seen again.
You've never heard of "renditions," even though there is a major motion picture about it? People are disappeared and tortured in other countries. When they appear, months later, if at all, they have no ability to sue or do anything to be compensated -- the Supreme Court said that went against the State Secrets Act.
curmudgeon99
I know of many people who either heard from their parents or observed what happened in Germany after 1934 and are leaving to live elsewhere in the world.
What!!!!! My family was there and your comparison is poorly thought through! We're sticking around and nobody is worried about disappearing. Family members were arrested in '39 and some were never seen again. So don't feed me this Nazi crap in America! You have no clue.
You have to be patted down to enter most college and all NFL football games. According to your thought process on airports, this means college and pro football teams are in on the coup! One day the streets will be full of the population waving green flags and shouting J! E! T! S! Jets, Jets, Jets!!! You know who else waved flags and shouted in the streets? The Nazis.
I dare say this would be this first ever coup that began with pat downs.
You're an idiot.
if there was some honest reporting on the goddamn msm, there would be a revolt by the american people. they have been misinformed ever since 911 by these assholes. i don't blame the american people. if they were honestly informed, they would respond. terry. from canada.
I think that everyone is overreacting a little. No one's rights are being denied except those who deserve it. I am applying for a DOD scholarship so that I can work in the labs and serve my country yet again. Its all conspiracy theory and bullshit. The reason the leaders of CodePink cannot get into Canada isn't because the US wants to keep them from traveling, its because Canada doesn't not want troublemakers. You people are more free and have more opportunities than your parents ever thought possible. Quit whining and thank your government for everything you own, and even your right to post negative comments about it. Move to China and talk smack about that government. Get over yourselves.
curmudgeon99 (above)
Is right; the coup has occurred and it is already too late.
Personally I saw this coming in the '70's when we were in the process of crushing all resistance to our rule in Latin/Central America....and what it was going to do to "organized labor" in this country in the future...and it has happened.
9/11 was "The Reichstag Fire."
End of story.
sierra
STAR OF THE SEA & PARADIGM SHIFTER: This thought occured to me recently, that just as the Piscean Age (its closure under way) depicts 2 fish facing opposing directions, a schism to a great many things coming apart at the seems as well as "seams," that mankind appears to be dividing into two cognitive camps. There are those bent on preserving what cannot BE preserved, the hierarchical capitalism-based status quo (that like a rabid animal is consuming its own basis for survival) and those that truly recognize the comraderie and basis for a new global humanitarianism where it's not about the most unconscionable making a pseudo-legal claim to all, but where the vast majority receive a simple sustainable basis for LIVING.
REBEL NOW: The Rome analogy is apt! Thanks for sharing it.
POX26: As flying gets to be more and more of a paranoid-journey and/or pain in the ass, what will happen? Will the feds have to bail-out the latest bankrupcies? Will they place airlines under Homeland Security auspices, and/or military rule, so that the seemingly infinite funds sent into those tributaries can sustain the big birds?
TONY VODVARKA: I see what you see, and every day have to ask myself if this is REALLY happening... I call it living in a state of paradox, since as a spiritualist, I honor the gift of life and try to live in a way that gives back to source what has been given to me. Yet as STAR OF THE SEA mentioned, the impossible psychic burden of FEELING the inestimable pain of so many being placed on the receiving end of insane policies of violence and vengeance (rendered in the name of the god of oil, Jesus' new costume?) creates an internal sense of near schizophrenia!
CLAUDIUS: Wise strategy. I think I could get into that aspect of research. Maybe here in the forum we should all decide who will look into the fiscal laundry list of which big players?
To: wilmoor (3:44 pm)
Apparently there's one being built here (www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/mt_weather.htm), as "we speak". A friend of mine made a delivery there recently. He said, "Did you know they're building a prison there?" I told him I didn't, but that I wasn't surprised. He said, "I've been in construction a long time. I know what it is."
Chilling.
I saw the coup occur. It was openly broadcast on C-SPAN disguised as senatorial debate on the Patriot Act (a Third-Reichian sounding term if I've ever heard one). Only Robert Byrd's voice resisting it like the last futile cry of the last man alive in the wilderness. "I can't beleive I'd ever see the day we gave this man that kind of power".
I hope all of this is incorrect. That Daniel Ellsberg, John Dean, and Naomi Wolfe turned out to be whacky defeatists. That Hillary became a wise and effective restorer of the republic. Then again, maybe I need my childish fantasies to sustain me through the bleak day.
Bilderberg this is TaTa,
I find your message incoherent with rage. Your second to last sentence is bizarre. Calm down. We are friendlies here.
"America needs strong leaders and strong laws to keep us safe and to advance us into a new era of American dominance."
Just read the PNAC, huh?
What makes you think people deserve rights? Over the course of the last fifty years have not the American people in their sloth and ineptitude forfeited any claims for freedom? My fellow Americans have brought this new dark age of fascist rule upon themselves and embrace it as the only defence against a world of hatred created by and directed towards them. You fools speak of peace and democracy, all illusions that divert national strength and weaken the country as a whole. America needs strong leaders and strong laws to keep us safe and to advance us into a new era of American dominance. We deserve no less.
A strategy that might be used rather than leaving the country would be to campaign against voting in federal elections.
My dream is that nobody votes in US elections and the US disappears. Who ever thought the USSR would disappear? Part of the campaign would be to find opportunists in the states who are motivated to get the power and money the US now extracts from all of us. States would become independent nations. The US is way way too large. States have nothing in common but the constant wars the US Government creates.
We sit here and quote past experiences of Nazi atrocities when we should be out marching on Washington.
Blog entries and news articles will not be enough to fight this.
Will the American people find the courage to fight for freedom like our fore Fathers did?
The entire-concept of this piece is flawed...as it's grounded in the notion that the next-administration (RPug or, more-likely, Dim) will be any-different or 'less-willing' to continue in the same-vein as this-one. No 'coup' is required for this. The US is now well-divided, and 'terrorism' will be used by any so-called 'representative' for the same wealthy/Globalist-Interests all the previous (if less-onerous/obvious) farces were.
And besides...'where', exactly, can you up-and-flee to? 'You have met the enemy, and he is you' -- you can't run from yourself (well, you can, but it isn't very healthy, longterm!).
"The Boot" will probably not come-down very soon. It is hugely-cheaper (and perhaps more-effective) to continue the con-game that has worked so very-well to date. Just hunker-down, and 'enjoy the ride' (better to be a 'bad-German posing as Good', than a 'bad/good-Whatever', once they get occupied...).
After-all, the Boot so many Americans seem so afraid-of now has been coming-down on most-everyone else's neck for a long/long-time -- to afford those same Americans their much-enjoyed and vaunted "standard of living". It really is about-time they got just a little taste of what it actually feels-like, No?
Guys, I bailed the States in 1989 just to see the world. I had so much fun, I kept delaying and delaying my return. Ultimately, I settled in a foreign land married with a native lady.
I didn't set out to leave Americ(k?)a permanently, but the more I see and the more I read, I certainly have less and less incentive to return. On occasion, I see some new arrivals from the US in town. Talking with them, I can easily split them into two groups - those who see the degradation of America and want to leave and those who are still so totally blind and are still believers in the neocons.
I have my own problems here, you know, with everyday life - the wife, the kid, the dog across the street, etc., etc. But, nobody really bothers me here. Even the cops are very eager to play "don't bug me and I won't bother you". I feel more free than I would be in the US.
I left, however inadvertently. All it takes is the guts to say goodbye to your native land. It's a big step, granted, but the sooner you take it, the happier you will be. Sure, things are tighter than before 9/11 here - you see that everywhere now, but police and surveillance presences are nowhere near the level you see in the US (or UK, for that matter). Hey...let me fill you in on a big secret? Guess what...There's a big, great, open, fun, not-as-paranoid world out there. Go see it. Leave. Make another land your own.
Gosh, folks, in all this discssion of whether or not a coup is being attempted, can anyone recall that six years ago in a single day, three structural steel buildings disinegrated into powder within a dozen seconds and fell into their basements, there never having been a collapse of such a building before in history, and simultaneous with this odd fact, NORAD went totally helpless, allowing four aircraft the liberty of the skies? Do we recall that in the immediate aftermath of these miracles, habeus corpus was annulled, extraordinary rendition was initiated, thousands of domestic prisoners have been held for years without due process and we are building concentration camps for hundreds of thousands of people? Rub your eyes, folks, this isn't Kansas anymore.
nigelUK :"They will be - when their usefulness is over. When the putsch has been achieved, who'll need the putschists any more?'
Just what happened to Ernst Rohm and his Brownshirts on the Night of the Long Knives or Operation Hummingbird.
'Blackwater needs to be put out of business ASAP' - Militantliberal.
They will be - when their usefulness is over. When the putsch has been achieved, who'll need the putschists any more?
Where are all the no dems, no reps in 08 on this one?
Don't you know that Wolf goes on radio shows like Thom Hartmann who says he will if it comes down to it vote for Hilary, and he himself gets his articles posted here?
After all since their is no difference between the dems and reps, and the reps are evil Nazis pushing for a police state and the dems no better we can't have articles that link to DailyKos, those Nazi enablers right?
Please be consequent those of you that say the dems are no different and boycott Commondreams for posting such evil enabling propaganda.
it is too late now, we've been had.
PS...
I personally am going to be laughing my ass off when all of those who doubted my observations based on history as to what is going to happen.
True, I will probabbly be in one of two places as I do so, either a Halliburton detention camp waiting my turn for the 'showers', or deep in the BC interior on LUTFA Farm, growing my own garden, and making a barter based living as a woodwright. Probably the latter.
As the saying goes: 'So long, and thanks for all the fish.'
'Veni, vidi, Visa.'
I came, I saw, I got the hell out of Dodge.
Canada is a not too bad place to head for the tall timber, folks.
I made this observation a while back and will again throw it in the ring for discussion. I have read the posts here and many of you have great suggestions. It seems to me that if politicians are going to hit us where we breathe, then we need to do the same to them. I am not saying go kidnap one of their children. What I am saying is within the boundaries of law, hit them where they breathe. For example, Dubya used to be or is part owner of the Texas Rangers. Baseball and money are dear to him. What if people showed up at the ballpark and protested the war so frequently and fans became so disenchanted that attendance diminished. If all of us really did our homework and carefully examined what mattered to each politician in a specific locale and concentrate our efforts on hitting those pressure points, we actually might have some effect. We need to find out who the biggest campaign contributors are to these politicians and characterize them to the public as being unpatriotic by supporting politicians who are willing to keep our troops in the middle of civil war regardless of political party affiliation. People already have become disenchanted with the way everything is going, and just like the Bush Administration repeating the lies, we repeat telling people the corporations and politicians are unpatriotic, until the public actually believes it and is willing to do something about it. What if we played the game the way the Bush Administration plays it? I am not suggesting sinking to their depths, nor randomly breaking the law, but beating them at their own game. Any ideas??
Many of the articles and comments lately make reference to Germany in the 1930s's and that what we are witnessing is a Nazi style takeover. I don't think it's quite the same thing, the circumstances are vastly different. I wasn't around at the time so my observations are from readings and conversations.
Germany in the 1920's and early 30's was in dire straits. The people were humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles and were made to suffer the consequences of the their warmongering leaders, while those same leaders were never prosecuted. The economy was a mess, worst than that of the depression in the US. Millions were out of work, hunger was prevalent. Hitler, through his charisma and fiery rhetoric, was able to galvanize many, many, disenfranchised people. Those crowds of thousands we see in film footage, cheering his speeches, were there in total support. No one forced them there. He was able to fire up and mobilize an entire nation to follow him to war. He fed on their sense of humiliation and suffering and promised a greater, more glorious Germany, and most bought it, even if it meant turning a blind eye to cleaning out of the undesirables.
What we see now, as frightening as it is, seems more like Imperial Rome. Americans are complacent, bloated, and self indulgent and just want to keep on playing in their SUV chariots, bathe in oil fired hot baths, go the the coliseum for some combative entertainment, or sit on plush couches at home with all the alcohol and snacks that can be stuffed into the belly.
If the imperial leaders need to invade some foreign territory to keep the bloat going and keep the opulent lifestyle intact then, well, as unpleasant as these things are, it's better that than going back to the old days of having to till your own land for food. Better to let the leaders fight the barbarians in the outer territories so they won't bother us here in the homeland. And what is wrong with bringing a little (Roman?)civilization to those unlearned, uncultured barbarians while the Empire usurps their resources?
What seems to be overlooked by most (not here in CD posts)in the territorial invasion of Iraq is not that it was illegal or criminal but that it was botched. Americans are now more upset that their comfortably bloated lifestyle may be threatened by incompetent leaders than that Iraq was illegally invaded.
Some of us may see a threat to our freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to travel, and those are genuine concerns, but I think most Americans care more about keeping the gluttony going.
The American empire will probably implode from within, like Rome. We may yet become a desperate and hungry people like the Germans in the 30's but we are far from that now.
The really astonishing thing isn't that a band of neocon true believers and corporate titans are calling the shots, effacing our constitutional rights, repudiating longstanding international law and alienating the world, but that the Democrats in Congress, the media and the majority of the populace are so supine. No, Bush isn't a Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot, but he's surely in the league with Pinochet, another US-backed torturer and tyrant. Congress must immediately revoke the criminal immunity it granted, repeal unconstitutional laws such as the USAPATRIOT, Miltary Commissions and Protect America Acts, hold courageous, transparent and wide-ranging hearings.
Militantliberal's post back at 7:38pm is good. Blackwater should not exist. I saw that quote from Macchiavelli about mercenaries in an article elsewhere in CD--surprising, considering the source.
Bush/Cheney are fundamentally anti-American, and I believe if Naomi Wolf is right about a full-fledged police state in the making, we liberals will receive support and cooperation from unexpected quarters.
What do the president, Congress, and the military have in common? Well, they are employed as gophers and enablers of huge corporations, the power structure, the power elite. In fact, of course, corporate/government America is one big affair with employees going up the hall or down the hall, sometimes changing offices but still loyal corporate employees.
We've been fed a line incessantly, particularly since 1945 or shortly thereafter, that corporate America is necessary (originally to "stop Communism"), that it is somehow distinctly American. We hear it implied hundreds of times a day and have for decades.
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost. Corporatism is entirely antithetical to representative democracy it is now crystal clear what its natural motives are and what it leads to. It leads to fascism.
Are we still cooperating with it? Why?? Afraid of an economic depression? Too much riding on it? How much is personal freedom worth? How much is sovereignty and human dignity worth?
"`Ma'am, you do not have a right to call an attorney,' they replied. `You have not entered the United States.'
Apparently a section of LAX just beyond the security line is asserted to be `not in the United States' — though it is squarely inside the airport — so the laws of the US do not apply."
Apparently this author has not heard of "transit lounges". Every international airport in the world has them, and they have existed for as long as international air travel.
Truthteller
If you post on this site, they can find the computer used to post. If it is in your house, they have you.
kayaker, I'm afraid that's how the "right" PRIVATIZED the "left" to its ruined status. Then again, it's hard to find consistent conservatives either.
In a movie many years ago there was a scene in which a German soldier was about to plunge a knife into the chest of an American soldier. But the American was attempting to hold back the arm of the German. The German soldier spoke softly and soothingly to the American. "Relax, it will not hurt so much. There will be rest afterwards. It is useless to resist. Let the end come and you will have peace". Slowly the American lost the strength to resist. Naomi asks if it is too late. Naomi,relax...
truthteller asked:
The major question is, how do we organize a resistance that will not be broken by the snooping government spooks and their telecom coconspirators?
Answer: Work in small groups with people you know and trust. Forget any big, organized efforts.
canuckchuck wrote on November 5th, 2007 1:57 pm
"As long as they can get American Idol on their TV's while they drink themselves into a fat stupor, the American Sheeple care not."
Nor do their sidekicks North of the 49th. The SPP has made accomplices of us all.
commander_n_chimp November 5th, 2007 12:21 pm
I no longer love the USA. Neither should you.
I Love this country and all it has done for me.
Orwell and Huxley used novels, I use short stories to dramatize what might happen. Ms. Wolf mentioned the detention of Anne Summers at LAX, but that's not the only tactic already in use at our airports. TSA have been sporadically stopping whole groups of people at a time and yelling at them to stay still for 20 minutes with no explanation. That's a situation ripe for exploitation by anyone interested in creating an excuse for further limitation of our rights.
I laid out what might happen in a story called "Incident on Concourse B". It starts like this...
=============
Lendon Forrester, clattering bags of jumbled canned goods, ran up the steps and opened the door. "Did I miss it?"
"No," Frannie Jurdens called from the kitchen. "They're still in a holding pattern." She capped the jug she'd been filling, and placed it beside the others on the counter.
Len glanced at the reporter on the living room TV in passing. "…the ticket counter behind me, air travel in our city has ground to a halt. This same 'ghost-town' scenario is being played out at airports across the country, in the wake of this morning's thwarted terrorist attack in Cincinnati."
Frannie looked up as he entered. "I don't know, Len. The media's crawling with rumors."
=============
The rest is here:
http://klurgsheld.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/short-story-incident-on-conco...
Surely we're not actually comparable to Hitlers Germany, or Soviet Russia (yet). But does Bush mimic many Dictatorial traits? Surely yes. The problem is that American Democracy, as it has existed in my lifetime (i'm 25), has been slowly eroding, and the pace has certainly kicked it up a notch during the last 7 years. And how many times have the "experts", the observers been warning us "this is unprecedented..." seems like everyday now. I mean it when I say nothing out of this Government really shocks me anymore- not just Bush. I will not be shocked when they, democrat or republican, declare a police state or martial law... and someone will be right there to say "Well, Lincoln did it."
It's well documented that out in the midwest, they, companies like Halliburton go figure, are building massive "detention centers" for hundreds of thousands of "detainees."
Bush with his Executive Orders, Signing Statements, and Congress (such as H.R. 1955) have all but put the necessary "legal proceedings" in place to claim everything they do is withing the law, and Constitutional. Many who sign these things know that it's wrong, but a great many really believe in the "Unitary Executive" a nice Euphamism for Dictator, Authoritarian, Autocrat. Last I checked, according to the Constitution (the "Piece of paper" according to the administration) no one branch of the three in the Federal Government are stronger than the other, or trump the power of the other. And if you look at the Constitution, and the Decleration of Independence (look how earily the Colonists Grievances in the Decleration match what we're experiencing today) it was designed to prevent an autocratic authorian state.
One can't deny that over the past few decades this Government and the executive Branch have both been grabbing and grabbing for more power, and more control over our lives, while simultaneously asking (demanding) Americans forfeit their God given liberties and rights.
someone earlier quoted:
"There is a new widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend Democracy by Totalitarian methods.
If you encourage Totalitarian methods the time will come when those methods will be used against you instead of for you."
George Orwell
I mean, please people, this Government doesn't look at 1984 as a warning, they use it as a handbook...Remember, the Totalitarian Oligarchy in 1984 NEVER executed it's own capital criminals, or the very few who were "mentally ill" and stood against the Government. Hence "The well trained circus dog turns a sumersault when there is no whip." Orwell, 1984
The constitution to them is just an obstacle in their way- their closest advisors are all lawyers to come up with statements to "justify" bending the constitution, breaking it, and finding "legal" loopholes for a narrow agenda- which few Ameriacans support. The Government has the agenda, unconstitutional, authoritarian certainly, they don't shape the agenda around the Constitution, they shape the Constitution around the agenda. They have no respect for the laws, and they think they are above the law. They hold you and I accountable for "personal responsiblity," yet they think they can do whatever they want. They preach a nation where no man or woman is above the law, but make excuses of why they're above the law. The excuse of National Security, and Executive Priviledge, btw, no reads "i'm lying, i'm decieving you."
People seem to think that this Government, and this Autocracy, enabled by a Plutocratic Legislature, are just going to give up their power someday, and return our freedoms to us. It's the fantasy idea that we can just get back our freedom whenever we want, by the snap of a finger. This is a delusional view at best. They won't just give up their unconstitutional claims to power, and we can't just vote, petition, or even demonstrate to get our freedom back when the time comes- and by that time, Microwave Crowd Control Weapons and the like will be in place to perpetuate a permanent police state.
70% of this country thinks we're headed in the wrong direction. Another 75% thinks we need to move in another direction than the one Bush has led us into. 65-70% disapproves of this Government all around the board. People are fed up with the Government. And I don't have anything to back this, but I can guess that a significant portion of the 30% of people who approve of this Government approve so out of faith and support only- where they have hope that this Government will be better in the near future.
Most importantly is how ignorant and jaded they keep us with regard to information. They control the information. The News Media isn't independent. Nearly everything you hear, especially Newspapers and TV is not just biased, but flat out wrong- and deliberate disinformation. Americans are dumbed down to the simplest explanations for the war, for foreign policy, for any issue. For instance, the War in Iraq, the reasons, motives, and consequences/results of this War are so vast.... you have dozens of 600 page books written about it. You can't possible sum it up with "The world is safer without Saddam." Foreign policy, in general, we're largely kept ignorant of. It's beyond belief how narrow a view, and how biased the American corperate media is. America lives on an Island, in a bubble cast away from knowledge and the truth of most matters. Even i'm overwhelmed with it. It's so refined, the politiical and partisan propoganda, message control, manipulation and societal programming that, again, it's not a coincidence. I can't keep up. It's designed to we can't keep up with it. When corruption becomes commonplace, when oppression becomes normal... and justified, who can? What benchmark is there to compare it to?
Siouxrose,starofthesea,jjpeter: Great posts.
conciousness will need to change now. All the political chess playing and analysis ends up in total fear and for me, feeling almost paralysed. It does bring up feelings of nazi germany, but postmodern in its expression. But this is definitely a different configuration in certain ways. We didn't learn. But, now it is the time that we either learn, or not.
We are the ones we've been waiting for. No one is coming to save us. I think this is a deep belief that is going to be changing fast, and it will be incredibly painful. But it is time for the human race to grow up.
I believe we need to be helping each other evolve as fast as we can now. We will need to use our inner senses, because the truth will not be 'out there', it will come from within...
>>Now in the event they are shooting our elder people and babies we need to arm our nation and fight back. Wipe them out as Bush and Cheney should be. We should make sure no neo-nazi idiots such as these K street whores ever be in power again.
Well put. Problem is, they've got the power. All we've got is the canned email replies.
I think the congress is lost. Naomi should not be still at a stage of "tell the congress." That's done with. They are a group of terrified rich people who don't want to die and will sell out the entire country to save themselves, or -- just as likely -- simply believe that by not "rocking the boat" they are somehow keeping everything intact and okay.
Meanwhile all of our powers are slipping away. Naomi brings up an important one -- the right to come and go from the country, control of the borders. And of course, the role of Blackwater to take over that control.
If you haven't passed this article onto a list or group of friends, do so now.
JJPeter, Mr. Chersonsky, and all the others: Thank you. And a special nod and thanks to Naomi Wolf. Huxley, Zamyatin, Orwell, and others wrote cautionary utopian stories to warn us. Bush & Co. have taken those works, not as warnings, but as plans of action. If you want to compare B & C to nazi or fascist activists, you are correct, but only half-way to the prize.
Read Stalin's explanations of "terror." Read about Beria, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Cheney. Read about Yezhov. Read about Yagoda. Read about Iron Felix Dzerzhinsky.
And above all, run as fast as you can! They aren't only coming, they're already here.
Environmentalists threaten Corporate control. So they are termed terrorists by the Corporate owned and operated Government, and harassed in these early stages.
Yeah, this is protofascism, a kinder gentler version, as Poppy would say...
Blackwater needs to be put out of business ASAP. Mercenaries are a threat to the state and people. If you don't believe me, read Machiavelli's Prince.
"Jews in America have hardwired into their DNA a sense of the distinction between those who got out before the borders closed and those who waited a moment too long."
I am not Jewish but this statement was EXACTLY my reasoning for leaving America just over one year ago. I asked myself "what did smart Germans do in the early 30's?" They got the hell out.
A lot of people are already fleeing the US. I have friends that have left for the Netherlands, Mexico, France, and Canada. This reminds me of the Reagan years, a proto-fascist time when a lot of Americans also left to escape repression. As more people are realizing, we're in the midst of true fascism now.
Have you noticed that Blackwater shoot mostly old men women and kids? They are Bush and Cheneys shock troops as hitler had his SS troups.Now in the event they are shooting our elder people and babies we need to arm our nation and fight back. Wipe them out as Bush and Cheney should be. We should make sure no neo-nazi idiots such as these K street whores ever be in power again.Just watch the pardons hitler jr and sr will sign.Forget the laws of this country as they have.Disregard the pardons and HANG THEM ALL.
jjpeter and siouxrose,
Thanks for your words of encouragementto all who post hear. For those who have ears to hear.... And please don't give up this thread of talk. We who long for and try to be points of Light, need to stand with each other and offer support. I, for one, am often in tears because of all the suffering that seems a necessary precursor of what will eventually come. I do not cry for myself who has a relatively easy life, but for the countless others on the Planet, who must endure this darkness. It doesn't help much to believe that as souls, we choose our paths freely and gladly for any number of reasons. It is still hard to be here on Gaia, our great bountiful mother and witness the matricide, which parallels the numerous genocides. Just keep telling me that the Light will prevail. In these dark times, it is hard to hold fast to that belief.
thanks liberatus fugit for bringing up hr 1955 violent rtadicalization blah blah act.
it's shocking how much gets under the radar- why do we now have to try to repeal military cmmissions and restore habeas corpus? how did that monstrosity ever get passed? now the same thing is happening with this one. they could rebrand it the new american fascism act and it would still pass. the house was 400+ for, 6 against.
[quote from article]: "I am hearing about them, even across the globe. Here in Australia I hear from the nation's best-know feminist activist ..."
Thank you Naomi! I was wondering what was meant by this clause in HR 1955: "`(9) Certain governments, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have significant experience with homegrown terrorism and the United States can benefit from lessons learned by those nations."
Now I know - it's those homegrown G*d - D*&ed feminist terrorists that have given the Australian government such significant experience. OK then, we've been warned.
JJPETER: Good posting. The Indian view of the Yugas dovetails of course with Mayan Prophecy, the prognostic offerings of the Hopi Medicine Men/Sun Bear, and the astrological count of age phase transitions. I think we ARE swimming in the darkest... though it may get even more intense in the next 7 years. 2020 seems to be the re-emergence of LIGHT, and I intended to use the title: 2020 Vision for a futuristic novel, until I realized the military is using that same euphemism for some space-based weapon's program. Nothing like synchronicity, when the dark side beats you to the proverbial punch-line!
"The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary... for immigrants or to support the rapid development of new programs" in the event of other emergencies."
"Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984, was a plan by the United States federal government to test their ability to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of massive civil unrest or national emergency."
"The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush's Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."
Now read "IBM and the Holocaust."
A sobering article and one we should heed. Whether here of in Pakistan I think a good response to such an imposition of martial law is a national strike. While it is important to block streets and shut down the country, staying home from work and commerce is also a vital tool and something many more people are likely to do.
A paper coup is just that -- a paper tiger if everyone opts out by staying home. No government can rule through force alone.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I now appreciate what the NRA has been trying to safeguard for all these years. Sadly, it may well come down to taking up arms to preserve what is left of our way of life, for the sake of our children and those of the world. It's not a very palatable option, nor is it for the squeamish, but neither were the American Revolution or the Civil War, yet we came through those apocalyptic events as a united people and became a stronger nation.
Perhaps this is inevitable, like the tides rising and falling, the ebbing of one age, giving birth to the next. We are at the edge of a new dawning, and what we are seeing and will be witnessing further is that the night will not go quietly.
If one were to look at the Indian's long term view, the ages of the Yuga's, we are leaving Kali Yuga, the low point of light reaching the planet, the dark, heavy, dense, materialistic age - and we have entered into the age of energy; electricity, atomic power, information available to the masses - like never before.
As this new age is energized, which is now Dwapara Yuga, its excitations stimulate the last vestiges of darkness, and thus the agents of the status quo, will fight for their rule, imposing whatever means they can muster to not lose to the forces of light.
But the universe can no more stop this onward march to the light, then she can stop our sun from rising in the East, or prevent the tides from rising and falling with the rythmes of moon, circling the planet.
Fear not fellow travelers, the darkest hour is just before the dawn. But be forwarned, that dark hour - is just about upon us.
mastershake, I know that what I resist persists, but how can we turn our backs on these "monsters"? Will it cause them to evaporate? I ask you this in all sincerity. I do not want to help create such a formidable and destructive reality with the enrgy of my attention, but I feel powerless to discreate it, too. That's why I feel we need help from other dimensions and realms much more evolved than we are. Is that escapism or wisdom? I am not always sure but no not what else to do.
"If you encourage Totalitarian methods the time will come when those methods will be used against you instead of for you."
Thanks for this quote...was this from Orwell or Huxley? I've read both, but can't remember.
Otherwise more poetically expressed,
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
I wrote the following to my two Senators this morning. I imagine I'll receive no answer yet again.
Dear Senator,
This letter primarily concerns "H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007"
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955
It has already passed the House and I never even heard of it. Read the fine print. If this passes, citizens, and even Congressmen and Senators' right to demonstrate or protest against government policy, your right to write and publish, may become a thing of the past. Code Pink, MoveOn, Common Cause, Veterans for Common Sense, CommonDreams and many others could become "Violent Radicalizers and Homegrown Terrorists." At the very least, Bush's new executive order that allows the government to seize the assets of anybody interfering with government policy, i.e., the war, or the imposition of martial law, could be used against any individual or organization that gets classified as the above.
I read yesterday that identifiable members of Code Pink are barred from entering the Capitol buildings. Perhaps that is what you folks want, for protest to stop, or be carried out only in "Free Speech Zones" far away behind wire with no press present?
We the People want our Constitution and Bill of Rights returned, intact and functioning, to the Halls of Government. With that in place, there is no crisis we cannot overcome. Without them, we become no more than a particularly dangerous banana republic dictatorship.
The Cheney/Bush Gang has done its best to destroy the Constitution, with the mis-named PATRIOT Act, the Military Tribunals Act, the FISA modernization Act, the destruction of habeas corpus, and other Acts; to criminalize the populace with secret no-fly lists and border crossing lists that no one can find out why they are on, (National Security) but cannot get removed from, either. To wiretap and spy on individuals with no checks and balances.
I am an historian and have studied what happened to Germany in the thirties. We are following the same path, with the same arguments. We all know where that led.
And, of course, never forget the no-bid Halliburton Concentration Camps.
Please, vote NO on H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 and any other of this type of draconian legislation that is brought up. This is too important and great a nation to go down the tubes to feed Cheney/Bush's ambitions and the War Machine's bottom line.
I have sent you dozens of e-mails regarding the erosion of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and requesting their return. This seems to be the one thing that I never receive an answer to. If you have valid and solid reasons for ignoring your oath of office to "protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC," I'd like to hear them. Perhaps you can convince us that a fascist state is the way to go, but I doubt it.
Yours for peace and sanity in our time,
I wonder if I'll get an answer this time? I won't hold my breath.
This piece just tells me that things are even more dire than I had realized in my little cocoon here in rural paradise. Don't know about the rest of you, but I have one thing to suggest, " Calling all you angels!" We need help and we need it right now! Peace and love needs to be amplified big time to jam the hate and fear curcuits! It can be done. I gotta believe it, otherwise I might as well leave this earthly plane, and I don't want that karmic burden. " Come forth angels of the blue flame and do battle with these forces of darkness. We need you now, more than ever before."
mastershake November 5th, 2007 1:36 pm
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,..."
Amen, but who reads it anymore?
What A Surprise !!!!
These are some quotes from George Orwell in his appendix to "Animal Farm":
"Defending Democracy involves destroying all inedependence of thought."
"If one loves Democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means."
"There is a new widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend Democracy by Totalitarian methods."
"If you encourage Totalitarian methods the time will come when those methods will be used against you instead of for you."
Men like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell saw American Capitalist Imperialism coming and tried to warn us through novels. We did not heed their warnings.
Is it too late?????
The "Shock and Awe" Technique used by the "American Puppet" Musharraf of Pakistan is an experiment.....Benazir Bhutto had warned the United States, in the Mid 90´s, "You are creating a monster and you will lose control" She was referring to Osama Bin Laden and the joint CIA/ISI operation, "Operation Cyclone".
Benazir Bhutto knew who had attempted to take her life last week. She knew that it was Pakistan's ISI and she stated that. One only has take the one step further, "What ISI does, the CIA approves !"
When that assasination attempt failed, the next step was "Shock and Awe". The list of opponents to Musharraf was made with the help of the CIA and they have been rounded up the same way the CIA helped in Indonesia, Chile, and too many countries to list.
If there is a Homeland Security Executive Order for Extreme Emergency use of Martial Law.....Then, what happens in Pakistan will happen in the United States and Democratic Senators like Schumer and Feinstein will approve of such Executive Rule, they are part of the Corporatist Capitalist System......
Naomi Klein is right. Daniel Estulin is right.
The only people that can save the United States are the people in the United States Senate and they have continued to approve of the Cheney/Bush agenda..........
Who cares that American Taxpayers have paid to steal the oil from the Iraqi people and that over 4,000 Americans have died in that theft? Who cares that over 1 million Iraqis have lost their lives (British Study)? Who cares that over 4 million Iraqis are in refugee camps in other countries? Not Corporate America, their profits have skyrocketed. Not Israel, their profits from International Defense and Security Contractors have skyrocketed.
Why has 9/11 been so important, when 48,000 to 100,000 people die from mistakes made in hospitals every year? (American