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A Very American Coup: Coming Soon to a Hometown Near You
The wars in distant lands were always going to come home, but not this way.
It's September 2016, year 15 of America's "Long War" against terror. As weary troops return to the homeland, a bitter reality assails them: despite their sacrifices, America is losing.
Iraq is increasingly hostile to remaining occupation forces. Afghanistan is a riddle that remains unsolved: its army and police forces are untrustworthy, its government corrupt, and its tribal leaders unsympathetic to the vagaries of U.S. intervention. Since the Obama surge of 2010, a trillion more dollars have been devoted to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and other countries in the vast shatter zone that is central Asia, without measurable returns; nothing, that is, except the prolongation of America's Great Recession, now entering its tenth year without a sustained recovery in sight.
Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of duplicitous politicians who only speak of shared sacrifices, they begin to organize. Their motto: take America back.
Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50. Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance. Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.
Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common -- and the protestors in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as an attack on basic freedoms.
Tapping the frustration of protesters -- including a renascent and mainstreamed "tea bag" movement -- the former captains and sergeants, the ex-CIA operatives and out-of-work private mercenaries of the War on Terror take action. Conflict and confrontation they seek; laws and orders they increasingly ignore. As riot police are deployed in the streets, they face a grim choice: where to point their guns? Not at veterans, they decide, not at America's erstwhile heroes.
A dwindling middle-class, still waving the flag and determined to keep its sliver-sized portion of the American dream, throws its support to the agitators. Wages shrinking, savings exhausted, bills rising, the sober middle can no longer hold. It vents its fear and rage by calling for a decisive leader and the overthrow of a can't-do Congress.
Savvy members of traditional Washington elites are only too happy to oblige. They too crave order and can-do decisiveness -- on their terms. Where better to find that than in the ranks of America's most respected institution: the military?
A retired senior officer who led America's heroes in central Asia is anointed. His creed: end public disorder, fight the War on Terror to a victorious finish, put America back on top. The United States, he says, is the land of winners, and winners accept no substitute for victory. Nominated on September 11, 2016, Patriot Day, he marches to an overwhelming victory that November, embraced in the streets by an American version of the post-World War I German Freikorps and the police who refuse to suppress them. A concerned minority is left to wonder (and tremble) at the de facto military coup that occurred so quickly, and yet so silently, in their midst.
It Can Happen Here, Unless We Act
Yes, it can happen here. In some ways, it's already happening. But the key question is: at this late date, how can it be stopped? Here are some vectors for a change in course, and in mindset as well, if we are to avoid our own stealth coup:
1. Somehow, we need to begin to reverse the ongoing militarization of this country, especially our ever-rising "defense" budgets. The most recent of these, we've just learned, is a staggering $708 billion for fiscal year 2011 -- and that doesn't even include the $33 billion President Obama has requested for his latest surge in Afghanistan. We also need to get rid of the idea that anyone who suggests even minor cuts in defense spending is either hopelessly naïve or a terrorist sympathizer. It's time as well to call a halt to the privatization of military activity and so halt the rise of security contractors like Xe (formerly Blackwater), thereby weakening the corporate profit motive that supports and underpins the American version of perpetual war. It's time to begin feeling chastened, not proud, that we're by far the number one country in the world in arms manufacturing and the global arms trade.
2. Let's downsize our global mission rather than endlessly expanding our military footprint. It's time to have a military capable of defending this country, not fighting endless wars in distant lands while garrisoning the globe.
3. Let's stop paying attention to major TV and cable networks that rely on retired senior military officers, most of whom have ties both to the Pentagon and military contractors, for "unbiased" commentary on our wars. If we insist on fighting our perpetual "frontier" wars, let's start insisting as well that they be covered in all their bitter reality: the death, the mayhem, the waste, the prisons, and the torture. Why is our war coverage invariably sanitized to "PG" or even "G," when we can go to the movies anytime and see "R" rated, pornographically violent films? And by the way, it's time to be more critical of the government's and the media's use of language and propaganda. Mindlessly parroting the Patriot Act doesn't make you patriotic.
4. It's time to elect a president who doesn't surround himself with senior "civilian" advisors and ambassadors who are actually retired military generals and admirals, one who won't accept a Nobel Peace Prize by defending war in theory and escalating it in practice.
5. Let's toughen up. Let's stop deferring to authority figures who promise to "protect" us while abridging our rights. Let's stop bowing down before men and women in uniform, before they start thinking that it's their right to be worshipped and act accordingly.
6. Let's act now to relieve the sort of desperation bred by joblessness and hopelessness that could lead many -- notably male workers suffering from the "He-Cession" -- to see a militarized solution in "the homeland" as a credible last resort. It's the economy, stupid, but with Main Street's health, not Wall Street's, in our focus.
7. Let's take Sarah Palin and her followers seriously. They're tapping into anger that's real and spreading. Don't let them become the voices of the angry working (and increasingly unemployed) classes.
8. Recognize that we face real enemies in our world, the most powerful of which aren't in distant Afghanistan or Yemen but here at home. The essence of our struggle to sustain our faltering democracy should not be against "terrorists," with their shoe and crotch bombs, but against various powerful, perfectly legal groups here whose interests lie in a Pentagon that only grows ever stronger.
9. Stop thinking the U.S. is uniquely privileged. Don't take it on faith that God is on our side. Forget about God blessing America. If you believe in God, get out there and start trying to earn His blessing through deeds.
10. And, most important of all, remember that fear is the mind-killer that makes militarism possible. Ramping up "terror" is an amazingly effective way of shredding our Constitution. Putting our "safety" above all else is asking for trouble. The only way we'll be completely safe from the big bad terrorists, after all, is when we're all living in a maximum security state. Think of walking down the street while always being subject to a "full-body scan."
That's my top 10 things we need to do. It's a daunting list and I'm sure you have a few ideas of your own. But have faith. Ultimately, it all boils down to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words to a nation suffering through the Great Depression: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. These words came to mind recently as I read the following missive from a friend and World War II veteran who's seen tough times:
"It's very hard for me to accept how soft the American people have become. In 1941, with the western world under assault by powerful and deadly forces, and a large armada of ships and planes attacking us directly, I never heard a word of fear as we faced three powerful nations as enemies. Sixteen million of us went into the military with the very real possibility of death and I never once heard of fear, except from those exposed to danger. Now, our people let [their leaders] terrify them into accepting the destruction of our economy, our image in the world, and our democracy... All this over a small group of religious fanatics [mostly] from Saudi Arabia whom we kowtow to so we can drive 8-cylinder SUV's. Pathetic!
"How many times have I stood in ‘security lines' at airports and when I complained of the indignity of taking off shoes and not having water and the manhandling of passengers, have well educated people smugly said to me, ‘Well, they're just keeping us safe.' I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state."
A public conditioned to act like sheep, to "support our troops" no matter what, to cower before the idea of terrorism, is a public ready to be herded. A military that's being used to fight unwinnable wars is a military prone to return home disaffected and with scores to settle.
Angry and desperate veterans and mercenaries already conditioned to violence, merging with "tea baggers" and other alienated groups, could one day form our own Freikorps units, rioting for violent solutions to national decline. Recall that the Nazi movement ultimately succeeded in the early 1930s because so many middle-class Germans were scared as they saw their wealth, standard of living, and status all threatened by the Great Depression.
If our Great Recession continues, if decent jobs remain scarce, if the mainstream media continue to foster fear and hatred, if returning troops are disaffected and their leaders blame politicians for "not being tough enough," if one or two more terrorist attacks succeed on U.S. soil, wouldn't this country be well primed for a coup by any other name?
Don't expect a "Seven Days in May" scenario. No American Caesar will return to Washington with his legions to decapitate governmental authority. Why not? Because he won't have to.
As long as we continue to live in perpetual fear in an increasingly militarized state, we establish the preconditions under which Americans will be nailed to, and crucified on, a cross of iron.
73 Comments so far
Show AllExcellent article. Only change I would say is that #9 is the most important, and for the most part, all the others, especially 10 flow from that one.
The people of Massachusetts got their nose rings tugged on and turned back to the party that put them in this mess instead of forcing the Democrats to do right by the American people they just turn to the other party that also does not have America's best intrest at heart. Cowards, Morons what more can you say?
As long as the Obombya Regime keeps playing into the hand of the FOX crowd, the "morons" will continue to advance FOX's neocon mission.
When Glenn Beck told Obombya to fire Van Jones, Obombya should have limited his comments to four letter expletives against Beck and proceeded to hire another dozen Van Jones's. Instead Obombya took Beck's bait by firing Van and hiring more right wingers.
Its not a "can't do Congress", and Obombya is not a "can't do" president. When corporate demands arise, Obombya and Congress work overtime to assure pro-corporate legislation is passed post haste.
When populist demands arise, DC instantly shifts into "can't do" mode and blames the victims, leftists, Muslims, Ralph Nader...you know the drill !
"Let's stop paying attention to major TV and cable networks that rely on retired senior military officers,"
"It's time to elect a president who doesn't surround himself with senior "civilian" advisors and ambassadors who are actually retired military generals "
and then, to top it all off:
"William J. Astore (...) A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), he has also taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School"
Am I the only one who sees the irony of this?
You could add "that don't agree with my views" to the end of both of the first paragraphs and then it would make more sense.
I respectively disagree...the US electorate repeatedly ignores insiders turned whistleblower...Paul O'Neil (Dubya's first treasury secretary, and Wendell Potter ex-Cigna exec. being two recent examples).
In the US the Democratic Party faithful and the Republican Party faithful are faith-based and do not let the facts get in the way of a good story or a celebrity candidate.
" A public conditioned to act like sheep". That says it all! And that is why I call the vast majority of Americans SHEEPLE!
I really don't get the use of the word "Sheeple" and what is derived from it. And who are the "vast majority"? Are the people lying in hospices "sheeple", how about children under 12, and that dignified looking brown skin lady in the white outfit standing at the bus stop on her way to the third job of the day in order to help bring in enough income to care for her children and grand children... "sheeple"? Oh, and that 89er on what would have been his 90th day of work...rents due, child support too...a "Sheeple"? If "sheeple" is going to be an accepted phrase of expression for the current and foreseeable days, shouldn't Livestock Guard Dawg and Herding Dawg be included in the conversation? And how about a clear identification on the Wolves? No, Two Headed MIC Monster and the likes don't get it!
Plus, when the phrase "a public conditioned to act" is continually used the conversation never reaches any depth as to the actual behavior occurring, thus also obscuring avenues for behavior change -- this is as culpable a form of "yearning for mysticism" as any false religion the one holding the whip handle or pulling the trigger of the gun is operating under.
I have stated here on CD many times; watch David Petreus. He will certainly run for President in 2016, and I suspect he will run for a first tier NY Senate seat in 2012.
ah-yes: Petreus-Palin 2016. its got a nice ring to it.
The five principles in Ike's speech have been supplanted by the Project for A New American Century. The cost comparisons between high tech weapons and essentials such as schools, hospitals, and wheat, are useless in a dumbed-down society wherein people don't know how to read maps or labels. When it comes to schools, no one is willing to fund education. Turning charter schools into military academies is a likely next step. Obama won't be a lame duck in '16. The Republican running for re-election will have already finished off what's left of the country.
So far, in Chicago, they have 6 military academies. Arne Duncan, Obama's appointment to Secretary of Education, used to be the CEO of the Chicago School System.
At this time, Chicago has 3 Army academies, and one each -- Navy, Marines and Air Force, all high schools. I have read that they would like to implement more of these academies across the country.
BTW, when CEO Arne Duncan was asked if military academies were in conflict with his Quaker roots, he replied, "I come from a Quaker family, and I've always been against war. But I'm going to put the Naval Academy in there, because it will give people in the community more choices."
" . . . the vast shatter zone that is central Asia . . . "
In reality, it is the United States that is the vast shatter zone.
"How many times have I stood in ‘security lines' at airports and when I complained of the indignity of taking off shoes and not having water and the manhandling of passengers, have well educated people smugly said to me, ‘Well, they're just keeping us safe.' I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state." -- William Astore
Not long ago, I made a trip to NARA, the National Archives here in NYC, to research a genealogical project. In order to get into the building, located on Houston, just off Varick, those who enter have to go through metal detectors, answer any questions asked by the security guards (Wackenhut) and remove belts, sometimes shoes, etc. Our bags go through the same kind of machine that bags go through at airports. If we set off the metal dectector, the security guard runs his wand over our bodies. In addition, we have to show a picture ID. (This is true for most public buildings scattered around NYC.)
ICE is also located in the same building.
Ahead of me, the guards were giving an older man, white, a lot of trouble. He kept having to take off more and more of his clothes, etc. He couldn't figure out what they needed from him. The guy behind me said something, and I thought his voice was protesting that we were even standing in line. But, not so! The man behind me was about a head taller than I, and he was broad-shouldered. My voice of protest caused him to tell me that we have to be safe, otherwise the terrorists might get us, etc. People really are fearful! And, at times, it's shocking to realize who embraces the fear.
A few weeks ago, when I went to the 42nd Street Library, on 5th Avenue, several policemen were posted on the northwest corner, weilding machine guns. I have no idea why they were there. I suppose it was a practice exercise of some kind -- who knows? However -- nothing, that day, was going on inside the library. It's quite intimidating to run into such a situation when simply walking on the streets of the city. I'm old enough to remember Kent State.
I'm old enough too. Amazing stories, Kay. How have we become so pathetically fearful? The truth is, we have far more to fear from our alleged protectors, from Wackenhut, the CIA, FBI, NSA or any other acronym for about a thousand agencies that only repress and diminish our freedoms, than we've ever had to fear from al-Qaeda, the Taliban or any other shadowy terrorist cell hiding in Middle Eastern caves. I'm more afraid of our own troops than of those we're supposedly being protected from.
I actually would be suprised if you guys had a dramatic made for tv, sort of crossing the rubicon moment. I think you are already ankle deep in the rubicon and are moving gradually across. No sparkling fire-works, banners or nazi arm-bands. Just routine chipping away at liberal democracy and human rights.
Only last week one of Obama's staff, it was revealed, has published a paper outlining how to subvert opinion in the country by using propaganda operatives on the government pay-roll posing as independant people with their own points of view. This builds on the Bush legacy, including the, now, not so secret "independant military analyst" programme seen on corporate tv.
In any normal democracy, heads would roll after such a disclosure. Not in the US. Not more than a peep, and only from "unembedded" journalists.
The US already did.
It was called 9/11.
I agree with Galen.
The proverbial Rubicon was crossed on September 11, 2001.
From the article:
"I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state."
Very important point. Over time I expect the security requirements to become so onerous that many will jump at the chance, when offered, to have a computer chip implanted under the skin that can be scanned to provide identity information confirming that the individual is "safe." The individuals with chips will always be able to go through the express line at any security checkpoint (which will multiply rapidly after the chips are introduced), at airports and elsewhere, and this will provide a powerful temptation to more and more people over time, as those left in the non-chip line will face ever more onerous safety checks. Then the fun can really begin.
I draw the line at "the chip" and if someone tries to force it on me I shall shove it up a part of his body where the sun don't shine.
The All American Dream Doll empirePie January 20th, 2009
A rubber dream partner is quite life like.
It even talks;
‘Hold my hand’
‘May I show you a good time’
‘You feel so grand, make it stand’
but flaccid...
like the American dream
it takes more than an orifice or two
to do the talk...
to prevaricate predator freedom
to maximize pod pleasure
like Pandora’s profit math
the celluloid turn blue bath
couched with the masses
clueless,... blow holing wonder
crass and truthless
like corporate carpers and Canuk harpers
empty and lifeless
like the doll
wasted
like ‘dirty oil’
perverse and pimpless
laying rubber
with empty phrases
Dreamless
My All American Dream and Doll
The feared fascist state already exits on paper and has been legislated into being over the last decade. It has yet to be fully implemented because there is no perceived need to keep order. With more and more of us out of work that could change. Yes, the teabaggers are nascent brownshirts but many are righteously angry working folk who know they've been had and are politically ignorant enough to be misled by the very folks they should be angry at. Sure, some are racist wing-nuts but not all are. We can call them names until we're blue in the face but it only alienates them and makes us their perceived enemy.
I say we join them en mass. I know that sounds crazy but honestly, if you actually listen to them and don't go in with an "I know better than you" attitude but instead focus on the authentic populist anger, we could influence that movement and turn it against Wall St and the corporatocracy. At very least we could create crippling schims and at very most we could build a better movement of angry citizens that know where to focus that rage.
Yes, television and the internet brain trust that brought us Obama have been working hard to convince us that the "tea baggers" are subhuman, just as the Right's information sources been working hard to convince them that we are commie socialists. It's one of the oldest tactics of control: divide and conquer. TPTB are scared we find more in common than what divides us, scared we unite against the fascist state that, as you point out, already exists.
Good idea.
"... focus on the authentic populist anger"
Communism and Capitalism have both failed in the extreme. We need a three-way balance between government, corporations, and the people. Government and Corporations are necessary, but we the people should control them both entirely and use them to serve our needs. These two branches are not human entities; they are not humane; and they are more dangerous than the backwoods militias, anarchists, and terrorists combined. Maybe the people can still organize together and create the right balance.
But ARE corporations necessary? At least in present formation -- with the rights of a person. Corporations exist to decrease liability to the shareholders. A corporation is not the same thing as a company.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
-- Thomas Jefferson
A couple of more quotes:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Gary
Yes Gary, you are on target. Corporate rights as a person are an abomination that never should have happened.
liability to the shareholders: There should be; and there should be constraints that serve the general public's best interests (like the Glass-Stegal act for one).
Corporation vs Company: Ok, so the corporate entity should be redefined as a "Company", having appropriate controls and constraints (ASAP).
Thanks for the profound quotes. They are perfectly apropos today.
Limited Liability Corporations?: They take little or no responsibility for doing anything useful in the first instance. And (reiterating), their purpose and goal is to take from the many for the profit of a few. So, we could conceivably invest in companies that "served real needs" and "earned fair profits". Most of the people would be better off, and the very small segment who loose unfair advantage could get over it.
One of the hallmarks of a good writer and a keen mind is the ability to distill ideas into clarity and brevity. The author has done a yeoman's job in that regard. He sees reality with a clarity I have not encountered in years. As a retired military man, he knows the beast about whom he speaks.
Every American should read this more than once. Every American should, also, contemplate how we can disenfranchise both major political parties and those whose agendas they foster, namely big business, the military/industrial complex and a corporate news media that enables them to remain in power.
Just for the record, Mr. President, Senators and Congressman, you were elected to represent THE PEOPLE, not the special interests and centers of power that buy your favors at will because you are so corrupt and compromised you wouldn't recognize principle and honesty if it hit you in the face. You, in my opinion, are the real traitors of democracy. I will never again waste my vote on the likes of any of you.
At the end of the day, you are more to be pitied than scorned. You are not strong but abysmally weak. The real strength of America resides in its people, if we will but use it to deliberately and peacefully use it to restore us to the real greatness we once knew.
For this scenario to have any chance of succeeding, a wise, charismatic leader with impeccable integrity will be needed to convince the American people that taking this approach is the only way to preserve what's left of our democracy.
Good luck!
A far more realistic outcome is the military opportunist leading the sheep into dictatorship.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN actually warned:
".........a republic madame....IF you can keep it....for democracy eventually ARRIVES at Tyranny.."
"..should this nation fall...it will not be because of foreign enemies or threats, real or imagined....it will fall because the PEOPLE ARE CORRUPT".
it,s already happened , not to say it's always been here for much to many
dweg
11. Demand a new Constitutional Convention to construct an institutional and legal framework for a functioning democratic process (with the Electoral College and US Senate abolished altogether and a one-house legislature directly elected on proportional represenataion prinicples, for starters).
The phony sham of two-party(that is, one-party)Democracy(TM) needs to be thrown out and a new one built from the ground up.
"Demand a new Constitutional Convention to construct ..."
Careful. Once you have a Constitutional Convention *anything* can happen including *not* doing what you want as well as doing many things you don't want.
"Think of walking down the street while always being subject to a "full-body scan.""
Or of being on the internet and having your every keystoke recorded, along with every website you visit and file you view. Oh wait, we have that right now (TALON and the like) thanks to our GWOT.
Or, maybe I'll just "carry" because my Sherriff allows it. Maybe we should just go about everything legally, and just ask our Sherriffs for permission to "legally carry". So far, I've had no problems in this regard.
This is a very interesting piece. I think we all need to start thinking about the survival of our nation. Leadership for our good is not going to come from Washington. And even the trillions spent for defense are not going to defend us.
Military thinking is both strategic and tactical towards a goal. We need to define for ourselves what the goal is: A government that governs in our best interests?
What the strategy or overall plan is to achieve that: Can we control (keep it from getting co-opted) a new, independent party, can we rehab the existing parties, or do we blindly hope something better comes out of the overthrow or collapse of the one we've got? (Frying pan to fire?)
And what are the tactics? We can use protests, non-compliance and organizing new political parties. We can vote with our money and our feet. We can pressure existing government for meaningful change.
It was the Veterans Against the Iraq War who brought this frame to my attention. The American people are being played to react in ways that don't benefit us when we need to act in a survival mode to the real threats we are confronted with. We can't afford to not work to carefully identify both the nature of the threat we face and the steps to keep us from harm.
Pitch Fork -
Very good post. Glad to see a tip of the ideological hat towards the antiwar veterans. Like it or not, those who have done time in uniform take on some immunity from cheap assaults against their patriotism when they return to civilian life. Whatever route is taken, these folks can run great interference for the peace and justice movement.
Bill from Saginaw
Great piece, especially the emphasis on getting us off the military addiction, which I think is the most important step this country can take toward ANY definition of progressivism. So long as we pour our treasury down the shithole of militaristic imperialism, or imperialistic militarism, we cannot possibly address any of the issues constantly discussed on this site.
What the WWII veteran says about our downward spiral into fear and pathetic scrambling to be Absolutely Safe at All Times, especially at airports, really struck home. I've felt exactly the same way every time I've flown since 9/11/01, which is a fair number of times: "I look at the airport bullshit as a training ground to turn Americans into docile sheep in a totalitarian state." A military coup, as the author describes, can't be too far away, if we're willing to put up with asinine shit like this indefinitely.
I contend that military coup occurred 9/11/2001. No one was held at gunpoint. Under the guise of the Global War on Terror, militarism flourished, with its annual budget of around $1.2T. PsyOps is a highly successful field, and fear is easy to disseminate. Our representatives in government are corrupt and pay heed to the lure of bribes for the massive MIC.
That's crooked cross. And Unka 'Bomb should learn from LBJ. Bring 'em back home, NOW!
The fall of the fascist amerikan empire IS happening NOW! The nasty details will play out depending on the attitudes/heart of the people.... no help at the top with war criminals in charge of congress and the white house !
tioche, Mexico
How will the next Revolutionary War start?
--------------------------------------------------------
A Revolutionary War is coming to Mexico. It will be a class war (http://www.narconews.com/Issue63/article4002.html). In keeping with the the earlier Mexican Independence and Civil Revolutions, this new Revolutionary Civil War will be bloody.
The US will respond. It will close the borders and accelerate the building of a border wall. It will move a trigger-alert ground force to the border, and place naval and air force assets near the border. Drones will be used extensively. Millions of undocumented and documented migrants will be rounded up and placed in the hundreds of internment camps that have been prepared for this event. The President will declare a State of Emergency. The US will support its corporate interests in Mexico, and will provide a military response. The US will become increasingly hated by the revolutionaries. Violence will break out. Partisanship with a distrust of brown skin will polarize the nation. Further violence and large-scale clashes of groups will occur. Riots. Shootings. The forces of Ayn Rand will be ruthless and full of hate.
"It can't happen here!". Yes it can.
Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here is at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html
>>". . . for these U-nited States, a-lone among the great powers, have no desire for foreign conquest. Our highest ambition is to be darned well let alone! Our only gen-uine relationship to Europe is in our arduous task of having to try and educate the crass and ignorant masses that Europe has wished onto us up to something like a semblance of American culture and good manners. But, as I explained to you, we must be prepared to defend our shores against all the alien gangs of international racketeers that call themselves 'governments,' and that with such feverish envy are always eyeing our inexhaustible mines, our towering forests, our titanic and luxurious cities, our fair and far-flung fields.
"For the first time in all history, a great nation must go on arming itself more and more, not for conquest--not for jealousy--not for war--but for peace! Pray God it may never be necessary, but if foreign nations don't sharply heed our warning, there will, as when the proverbial dragon's teeth were sowed, spring up an armed and fearless warrior upon every square foot of these United States, so arduously cultivated and defended by our pioneer fathers, whose sword-girded images we must be . . . or we shall perish!"
___
"What this country needs is Discipline! Peace is a great dream, but maybe sometimes it's only a pipe dream! I'm not so sure--now this will shock you, but I want you to listen to one woman who will tell you the unadulterated hard truth instead of a lot of sentimental taffy, and I'm not sure but that we need to be in a real war again, in order to learn Discipline! We don't want all this highbrow intellectuality, all this book-learning. That's good enough in its way, but isn't it, after all, just a nice toy for grownups? No, what we all of us must have, if this great land is going to go on maintaining its high position among the Congress of Nations, is Discipline--Will Power--Character!"
She turned prettily then toward General Edgeways and laughed:
"You've been telling us about how to secure peace, but come on, now, General--just among us Rotarians and Rotary Anns--'fess up! With your great experience, don't you honest, cross-your-heart, think that perhaps--just maybe--when a country has gone money-mad, like all our labor unions and workmen, with their propaganda to hoist income taxes, so that the thrifty and industrious have to pay for the shiftless ne'er-do-weels, then maybe, to save their lazy souls and get some iron into them, a war might be a good thing? Come on, now, tell your real middle name, Mong General!"<<
Gary
When I was in DC last fall I noticed mingling with the few protesters that were serious enough to show up, people who seemed to be watching them--maybe Mossad(ME looking) or other agencies--we have already been taken over my friends, and to rid ourselves of these vermin won't be easy.
If a modern redux of a Freikorps type coup occurs in the USA, then the entire world is at peril. The USA would replace Pakistan as the most dangerous nation on the planet with nukes.
Please don't forget the scapegoats. Above all, beware of being drawn into blaming and hating any groups. Muslims, Hispanic people, African Americans, Liberals, those old favourites the Jews, and any group that Fox attacks.
A mob has many heads but no brain.
Deja Vu
Disillusioned veterans were unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy.
So they overthrew their Tzar.
I actually think that we, as Americans, need to do only One thing:
1. Redistribute the wealth (a one-time tax that reduces the wealthiest 10% to owning only 60% of the country, with the balance given to the poorest 90% evenly. followed by reinstitution of the progressive taxation America used during the FDR Age, 1930-1980, to keep these kinds of conditions from occuring ever again).
Our country is militarized because the people who own it want it militarized: its good for (globalized) business (especially oil-related). Spread the ownership and the need for excess militarization goes away, along with the military budget. Likewise, reducing ownership levels to those that American's enjoyed during the Age of the Greatest Generation will reduce the vast pools of excess "idle" capital that currently fund Faux News, Glenn Beck, and other corporate lapdogs on the right who spend these vast pools of money propagandizing the public that they actually LIKE being poor, militarized, and marginalized in what was once the worlds greatest democracy. Money infects democracy, it always has and always will. But money can still reflect the 'will of the people' as long as the PEOPLE still own the money. 30 years after Reagan, that is just no longer true (the wealthiest 10% of Americans currently own 75% of the country; the wealthiest 1% of Americans currently own 50% of the country).
Excess wealth has corrupted our country AND our capitalism. The militarization of America is just another reflection of this corrupting influence. Time to return to the 'managed capitalism' our country enjoyed during the Age of FDR, when progressive taxation levels prevented the wealthiest 10% of the country from owning more than 60% of it. Any more than that, and excess wealth works to undermine both democracy AND capitalism. As this article indicates, the true purpose of the militarization of America is to put down future populist revolts IN America, BY Americans. We better figure this out soon, or any future changes will be bloody indeed.
My sense is the events prophesied by Mr. Astore are not only inevitable but are part of a long-range plan developed by the U.S. Big Business/Wall Street Ruling Class in the 1930s (with the help of Adolf Hitler via German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop) and launched via the Decade of Political Murder (JFK, Malcolm X, King, RFK, Fred Hampton, Kent State, Jackson State etc.) c. 1963-1970. I already published my own visual equivalent of Mr. Astore's prophecy, the Palin/Hitler collage I made to illustrate my blog of 25 November 2009: http://lorenbliss.typepad.com/loren-bliss-outside-agitators-notebook/2009/11/. (Note: the headline quote -- so like a Sarah Palin assertion -- is from one of Hiter's speeches.)
I like your blog, Loren. Thank you.