Wake up and smell the fascism

[james]

In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes.
His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism."

The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.


Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.

Fascism Anyone? Laurence W. Britt
www.secularhumanism.org/


Now that was top notch. You need to see, how they put it together over at Old American Century. condensed but with substantial links to todays head lines and trends that are leaning that way hard,
A must see and read, Highly recommended.
www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

Now that were through with the formality's, I like you to take a look at When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History. The article "Fascism Anyone?" really nails the gnawing questions, well but in this next article: When Democracy Failed. That brings it home in a way, that makes me wanna move, puts things in a perspective that are hard to ignore. Please do take a minute to read it is powerful lesson from history extremely relevant to Laurence Britt's Warning.

[james]

^


When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
March 20, 2003
By Thom Hartmann

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."

Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

Thom Hartmann is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/03/20_failed.html


OMG... That sounds vaguely familiar, So what do you think, an interesting piece of history eh? who was it that said 'Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it' I tend to agree with him.

[jebeltariq]

James,

Excellent comparitive analysis! The similarities are astounding, nay shocking. But, you didn't finish the story James. You didn't tell us how it all ended for Hitler. His last few days... his final moments... ? As you quote, and I fully agree: 'Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it'.

Peace

[james]

Honestly, jebeltarig

I couldn't pen the, comparative analysis, of 2 sticks on a good day. Copy and paste hack, with a door to nail it on, comes to my mind, and yes the lessons to be learned are great, to bad the world hasn't noticed, eh?

What goes around, comes around. Evil men will always meet their, Fate with the same ferocity, and brutality, that they visited upon others.

As you said here;

jebeltariq said:

I often pray to Almighty God to have mercy upon the wronged and to ease their final pain and suffering and to visit upon the wrong-doer such a calumny as that befell Sodom and Gomorrah and the Pharaoh in ancient Egypt in the aeons gone by. But then I realise that in my creed the Almighty has assured us that justice will be done.

The All-seeing does not need a mortal's prayer.

And surely justice will be done.

Yes, jebeltarig. The Almighty has indeed, assured us that justice will be done.
What goes around, comes around. Justice will be done.

[jay paulson]

26 Oct

“ We Now Live in a Fascist State,” is an article written by Lewis H. Lapham that appears in the current (October) issue of Harper’s Magazine, a prestigious monthly devoted to news, literature and so on. Lapham makes it clear that the U.S.is not on the road to fascism but has already reached that destination.

He lists a number of axioms that Umberto Eco, renowned novelist , essaysist, and thinker has postulated to describe a “way of thinking and a habit of mind ”that is common to the different forms of fascism”: pagan, catholic. corporate, and so on.


Some of them which, should remind you of the present American scene, are:

The truth is revealed once and only once.

The national identity is provided by the nation's enemies.

Argument is tantamount to treason.

Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear. Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of "the people" in the grand opera that is the state.


Lapham points out that book burning is not necessary in the U.S. since for the most part the American public doesn’t know how to read or think, and notes that the many problems Russia, Germany and Italy had in dealing with the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, and so on didn’t exist for America: the dumbing down of the U.S. public-- through mass media, sports, and entertainment, for example—all this smoothed the way for the arrival of the fascist state.

You can find the article at:

www.harpers.org/LewisLapham.html

P. S. Be happy to discuss ideas in this summary with guests or members.

[DT1]

In this moderator's humble opinion,Cindy Sheehan has been arrested
(twice)for attempting to prevent murder.
I have only a few heroes,and Ms.Sheehan is one of them.
When they slapped the cuffs on her,they were assaulting everyone who knows the difference between the liberty that is our inheritence,and George W.Bush's Mcfreedom.
She will prevail over this fascist state we find ourselves in.
I, for one, will continue to stand with her.

Thursday, October 27, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

If You Believe in What You Are Doing, Give Me Your Stiffest Sentence. If You Don't, Then Resign
by Cindy Sheehan

Yesterday, started off with a "bang" when we went to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath in the section where the Iraq War dead are buried. In our group yesterday morning were 3 other members of Gold Star Families for Peace. Juan Torres was with us and his son, Juan, was murdered in Afghanistan.

First of all, I was followed all morning by the Park Police. I guess because I am a very dangerous subversive. I would never hurt a flea, but what I am dangerous to is the lies and corruption of our government.

Secondly, Juan, Beatriz Saldivar, and Julie Cuniglio who have all had loved ones killed in this war had brought pictures of their dead loved ones with them to Arlington. We were told by the administration of the cemetery that they couldn't take the pictures into the cemetery because they were "political statements!!" We were stunned that pictures of our children that have been killed for lies and betrayals and for purely political reasons can't be shown in a cemetery that supposedly honors those who have served, some making the ultimate sacrifice in war. We are living in a state that kills our children then calls them political statements. That speaks volumes to the chicken hawks who we are allowing to ruin our country.

After Arlington, I met with Sen. Carl Levin from Michigan who has been a strong and outspoken critic against the war. The mess that George Bush has unleashed on our country and on the innocent world weighs heavily on his shoulders. He knows something needs to be done. Let's support him in doing so. Today, I will meet with Sen. Stabenow from the same state.

We headed to the vigil at the White House for our hours long wait in the freezing cold. There was a man there who had several signs which among them said: "Saddam loves Cindy." This man didn't care that Rumsfeld (or Rumsfailed as I accidentally called him on an interview yesterday) was buddy, buddy with Saddam and gave him or sold him tons of WMDs before he became our enemy. I told this man that he didn't bother me, and he told me I don't bother him either. Well, if I don't bother him, why did he come down and make signs and march for hours screaming that I kill our soldiers? We found out why. He was making 60 dollars an hour to do so from some non-profit, right wing group. He said he would switch signs if we gave him more money.

At 7:30 PM about 100 patriots symbolically died in front of the White House. Then 26 of us refused to get up and were arrested. As usual, the Park Police were very polite and efficient and many whisper words of support and encouragement to us. We are planning another die-in tonight at 7 PM. We need more Americans to come out and symbolically die with us here in DC…or do it in your own communities at relevant places, like a federal building, congressperson or senator's office.

When I was being processed out the Lieutenant warned me if I got arrested again that I may have to stay in jail until January since this was my second arrest and I already have one under my belt that hasn't been resolved (which I plan on going to court for anyway). The Lt went to bat for me, he said, so the judge wouldn't keep me until my November court date this time.

I appreciate the warning of the Lt., but I plan on doing Civil Disobedience again this evening. I cannot live freely in a country where people are allowed to commit murder and roam free to commit more mayhem while other people who are exercising their first amendment rights to free speech are locked up in jail. I cannot live freely in a country where others are allowed to lie to retaliate against a person who had the temerity to challenge previous lies. I cannot live freely in a country where bereaved family members aren't allowed to carry pictures of their murdered loved ones into a national cemetery.

If I go before a magistrate tonight or tomorrow after my next arrest, I will tell him/her: If you believe in what you are doing, give me the stiffest sentence possible. If you don't, then resign.

Peace soon.

[michelle]

They came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up...

By Stephen Rohde

(Author's Note: The USA Patriot Act became law a little over one year
ago.)

First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up because I
wasn't a Muslim.

Then they came for the immigrants, detaining them indefinitely solely
on the certification of the attorney general, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't an immigrant.

Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their
attorneys, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.

Then they came to prosecute noncitizens before secret military
commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a noncitizen.

Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and
peak" searches, and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.

Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and
surveillance of domestic religious and political groups, and I didn't
speak up because I no longer participated in any groups.

Then they came to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely
without any charges and without access to lawyers, and I didn't speak
up because I would never be arrested.

Then they came to institute TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention
System) recruiting citizens to spy on other citizens and I didn't
speak up because I was afraid.

Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it
only aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies,
and I didn't speak up ... because I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.

Forum Column (from the Daily Journal, 11/20/02). Stephen Rohde is an
attorney. He edited American Words of Freedom and was president of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Does Rohde's text seem familiar? It should. He based it on one of the
web's most widely-circulated texts about silence in the face of evil:

In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was
a protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak
for me.
Rev. Martin Niemoller
(1892-1984)

That text appears in several slightly varying forms but is always
attributed to the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöeller (1892-1984), who
was several times jailed by Hitler in the mid-thirties, then spent
eight years in Sachenhausen and Dachau. He survived to become an
important anti-nuclear pacifist. He was, from 1961-1968, President of
the World Council of Churches. One source says that he frequently
ended his speeches with that text, so the several variants may simply
reflect transcriptions of those different events.

buffaloreport.com/021123rohde.html

[Humbeld]

In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was
a protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak
for me.
Rev. Martin Niemoller
(1892-1984)



This Ominous waring has been around a long time

As is the reality of Self evident Truth People accept it as that
and forget just How Profound that Truth really is

[DT1]

Here's something to think about:
(reprinted courtesy of rense.com)


How Much More Will
The American People Endure?
Our Mothers (and Thomas Paine) Warned Us
About People Like The Disciples Of Strauss
By Jason Miller
11-11-5

How much more will the American people endure?

"Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." --Frederick Douglass, African-American slave, and abolitionist

229 Years Later Have Passed and True Freedom Still Eludes Most of Us

In support of the brave and intelligent citizens of Vermont who recently passed a resolution to secede from the union, I decided to update and modify our Declaration of Independence to fit the circumstances we are facing in 2005. Despite the numerous distinctions between then and now, in some significant ways, little has changed. Like our Founding Fathers, I enumerated grievances of the Oppressed in my version of the Declaration, and many are similar to those spelled out in the original version drafted in 1776. Even the name of the lead Oppressor remains the same.

I realize this updated Declaration has no authority, and that such a movement towards independence from our corrupt plutocracy would require significant grassroots support and organization to be successful. However, I believe it is crucial to fan the dying embers of the American spirit of independence in a time of unprecedented apathy, conformity, and complicity in the crimes of our abomination of a federal government. George Bush is not fit to lick the boots of a man like Thomas Paine, yet he is one of the most powerful men on the planet. With the might of the US government at their disposal, he and his loyal minions have committed duplicitous, larcenous, and homicidal acts virtually on a continual basis throughout their reign. In a symbolic act of defiance against King George, and an act of support for social justice and human rights, I have signed my revision of the Declaration.

Thomas Paine was one of the few Founding Fathers who championed the rights of the "common people". Paine recognized the universality of human rights, which is why he has not been enshrined in the "American pantheon" with the likes of Washington and Hamilton. Were he alive today, he would once again be vehemently agitating for change as he caught scent of the overwhelming stench emanating from the seemingly grand epicenter of inhumanity rising from the banks of the Potomac River. In deference to Paine's spirit, I wrote this revised version of the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence of the Fifty Colonies and their Poor and Middle Class Inhabitants from the Imperialist Federal Government of the United States of America

The unanimous Declaration of the Fifty Colonies of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political chains which have enslaved them to another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God of each person's understanding and choosing entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions to mankind demands that they need declare the causes impelling them to separate.

We hold these truths to be self-evident and irrefutable, that all Humans are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Human Rights (as delineated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at www.un.org/Overview/rights.html). ---That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among the People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the Governed, --That whenever any Form of Government usurps powers without the Governed's consent and becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that Humans are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of obscene abuses and heinous crimes, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right and responsibility to depose such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Fifty Colonies, their Poor and Middle Classes, and most of the rest of the world; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of the United States [George II], and that of his predecessors [of the Royal Houses of Elephant and Donkey alike] dating back to the reign of King Richard of the Royal Family of Nixon, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations [by kings and their trusted advisors], all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Colonies and their Poor and Middle Class inhabitants. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They [King George II and his royal advisors: Lords Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, and Lady Rice] have refused their Assent to Laws and Policies, most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have engaged in acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the city of New Orleans through acts of criminal neglect and gross mismanagement of the aftermath of a natural disaster, the willful creation of a diaspora of the poor Black inhabitants of New Orleans, the suspension of labor laws which would have ensured fair wages to those rebuilding the city, and the dispensation of generous federal contracts to crony corporations to rebuild a city favorable to the interests of the wealthy.

They manipulated facts and presented lies to the American People and to Congress to gain necessary approval of a "preventive", illegal war against the sovereign nation of Iraq on the shifting premises that this nation posed an immediate threat to our national security, that the Iraqi people needed a champion to topple a ruthless dictator, and that their purpose was to spread "freedom and liberty". It has now come to light that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, had no connections with Osama bin Laden, and was little or no threat to the United States. They knew this prior to the invasion. They subverted a government led by a former US ally whom the US supported when it knew he was committing genocide. They installed a puppet Iraqi regime fortified by 140,000 US military personnel and call it "Democracy". They are responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. Their hands drip with the blood of innocents slaughtered using monies from our Treasury and the blood, sweat and tears of our children.

They recruited and trained US military personnel under the pretext that they would be engaged in defending their nation. After enticing young men and women to serve based on blatant lies, They thrust them into imperial conquests like the one in Iraq. They are responsible for the sacrifice of over 2,000 American lives which They sacrificed at their sacred alter of the almighty Dollar.

They have continued to perpetuate, protect, and expand the powers of corrupt, avaricious corporations These cornucopias of avidity for wealth and power pay sub-standard wages, offer minimal benefits to their employees, increasingly utilize inexpensive "offshore" labor, manufacture products in "sweat shops" which egregiously violate the human rights of their employees, profiteer during wars and natural disasters, rape the environment and plunder our precious natural resources, utilize "creative accounting methods" to increase their stock value, capitalize on laws enabling them to create hostile environments for unions, demand virtually endless increases in corporate welfare, and strangle competition through mergers and acquisitions accomplished with their over-inflated stocks.

They have perpetuated and expanded an executive branch of government which is in many ways indistinguishable from the leviathan corporations and wealthy elite which it serves and represents.

They have forsaken their primary responsibility, which is to preserve the universal human rights of their citizenry, and to secure its general welfare. They have rapidly eroded federal domestic programs promoting health care, education, basic infrastructure, and housing, while directing unconscionable sums of public monies to the military industrial complex comprised of current and former government officials and the wealthy elite. They seize the lion's share of taxes from their citizens and spend obscene amounts to finance a grotesquely powerful military [and their imperial adventures], while a significant number of their citizens want for proper education, housing, transportation, and even nourishment.

They have created a rogue military state which engages in terrorism of such magnitude that terrorist acts committed by the Iraqi Resistance, while equally as morally objectionable, are modest in comparison.

They have, through their willful neglect of the general welfare, allowed 46 million Americans to languish with no health insurance, 13% of their citizenry to experience poverty, 3% to experience homelessness, 24% of their Black populace to live in poverty, and 6% of their citizens to experience unemployment. These glaring blights on humanity are inexcusable in the wealthiest nation in history.

They have continued to loosen federal regulations on the "free market" economy, thus further enriching their plutocratic allies while impoverishing more and more Americans. They have worked tenaciously to perpetuate the exportation of Neoliberal economic policies to Latin America, crushing economies throughout that region, and creating chasms between their rich and poor.

They have employed chemical weapons in Iraq, violating numerous treaties, conventions, and International Laws.

They have exposed their own soldiers and the civilian inhabitants of occupied Iraq to the dangers of depleted uranium.

They have employed a variety of illegal and unethical means to manipulate and taint the results of two presidential elections to ensure their ascendancy to the seat of power.

They have enacted laws and policies hostile to science and intellectual viewpoints, thus leading our nation down a path of ignorance and superstition.

They have grossly usurped their powers by intimidating Congress into enacting the Patriot Act, decimating Habeas Corpus and due process by illegally detaining Jose Padilla [an American citizen] for three years, and violating virtually everything for which the Bill of Rights stands by illegally detaining, torturing and murdering accused terrorists at Abu Gharib, Guantanamo Bay, and other undisclosed locations around the world.

They violated Posse Comitatus in New Orleans and have since stated their intention to crush it by deploying US military personnel on a wide scale in future domestic disasters.

They have consistently rewarded or promoted those members of their Royal Court who have committed criminal or grossly incompetent acts.

They have pillaged the public Treasury, dispersing tax monies to their cronies and collaborators in their corrupt schemes. They have created an astronomical national debt which will hang from the necks of future generations as a millstone of astounding proportions.

They have virtually relieved themselves and their wealthy compatriots of their tax obligations. In so doing, They have placed the burden of filling the public coffers on the backs of those who benefit least from their governance [the Poor and Middle Classes].

They have financed and enabled the ruthless Israeli colonial occupation of Palestinian territory, and have allowed elements closely aligned with the radical Likud to shape their foreign policy decisions, particularly in the Middle East.

We [those amongst us who do not remain entranced by the powerful propaganda of the mainstream media] have Petitioned for Redress in humble, reasonable terms in a variety of ways. Our repeated Petitions have been answered by repeated injury. A Prince of the American Royal Family of Bush, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our brethren in the federal government, their corporate allies or the wealthy elite. We have warned them from time to time of their attempts to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of our inalienable rights derived from Natural Law, the US Constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have appealed to their senses of justice and magnanimity, and we have beseeched them to disavow these usurpations based on our common kindred. They have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Humanity, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Fifty Colonies of America and their Poor and Middle Classes, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these Fifty Colonies and United Peoples are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent of the United Stated Federal Government; that We are Absolved from Allegiance to the Federal Crown, and that all political connections between them and us, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent People forming a true Constitutional Republic, we have full Power to provide for the General Welfare of the Populace, to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence (by the Higher Power of each person's understanding), we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Kansas

Jason Miller

Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works as a loan counselor in the transportation industry, and is a husband with three sons. His affiliations include Amnesty International and the ACLU. He welcomes responses at [e-mail] or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.

[michelle]

Lawsuit details AT&T cooperation in illegal government spying on Americans
By Joe Kay
18 April 2006

A lawsuit underway in a US district court in San Francisco charges telecommunications giant AT&T with violating the privacy of its customers by handing over massive amounts of data to the government. The class action lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of AT&T customers, is based on documents provided by a former AT&T employee that detail the company’s participation in the National Security Agency (NSA) warrantless spying program that was first revealed late last year.

The documents, obtained by Mark Klein, a former technician at AT&T, are currently under court seal. They were provided to the New York Times by Klein, who also released a statement earlier this month describing what he discovered while working at the company. AT&T has filed a motion to have all the documents returned on the grounds that they are proprietary, but the company has not denied the validity of the documents or Klein’s statements.

If true, Klein’s statements confirm that the spying carried out by the NSA is much broader than has been acknowledged by the government, and has been made possible only through the willing participation of a handful of giant corporations in the US. The NSA program involves a direct violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as well as provisions of the Bill of Rights that prohibit unwarranted search and seizure.

Klein’s revelations strongly suggest a criminal conspiracy between a section of corporate America and the US government.

According to a New York Times article published on April 13, the documents, which the newspaper handed over for examination by four telecommunications and computer security experts, “describe equipment capable of monitoring a large quantity of e-mail messages, Internet phone calls, and other Internet traffic” The equipment “was able to select messages that could be identified by keywords, Internet or e-mail addresses or country of origin and divert copies to another location for further analysis.”

“The technical experts,” the Times reported, “all said the documents showed that AT&T had an agreement with the federal government to systematically gather information flowing on the Internet through the company’s network.”

In a statement released by his lawyers, Klein said that the equipment was installed in a secret room in an AT&T facility in San Francisco, where Klein worked for 23 years before leaving in 2004. Ordinary employees at the company were not allowed access to the room, which was adjacent to the “switches” through which data and phone calls are routed. Klein said that cables connected the switches with the room operated at the behest of the NSA, allowing the government free rein to monitor all communications.

“Based on my understanding of the connections and equipment at issue,” Klein said, “it appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all the data crossing the Internet—whether that be people’s e-mail, Web surfing or any other data.”

In addition to the room in San Francisco, Klein said he also learned of a similar facility at an AT&T switching location in Atlanta. The documents cited by the Times indicated that the cooperation extended to facilities in San Jose, San Diego and Los Angeles, California; and Seattle, Washington. These hubs channeled e-mails and other data from a large number of other Internet providers to AT&T, meaning that the number of people potentially spied on extends well beyond AT&T’s customer base.

The data to which the government has access is not limited to these cities, since the facility Klein worked at was connected “with other networks and hence the whole country, as well as the rest of the world.”

Previous reports have indicated that a number of other companies have participated in a similar way, though details have not emerged of the extent of participation of these companies.

There is nothing in the technology involved that would limit the government to monitoring communications going into and out of the United States, despite the claims of the Bush administration that only such communications are being targeted by the NSA. According to the Times, “The network designer and other experts said it would be a simple technical matter to reprogram the equipment to intercept purely domestic Internet traffic.” The only guarantee that this has not already happened is the word of the American government.

The statements by Klein and the documents obtained by the Times directly contradict previous assertions by the Bush administration that the spying program is limited in scope. For example, Michael Hayden, the principle deputy director of national intelligence and former director of the NSA, declared in a speech on January 23 that the NSA program is not a “driftnet” monitoring conversations “that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about.” In fact, according to Klein, this is precisely what the program involves.

In response to the recent revelations, the government has given its standard response: It refuses to talk about “operational details,” while suggesting that any attempt to expose its violation of the democratic rights of the American people amounts to support for terrorism. “Any discussion about actual or alleged operational issues would be irresponsible as it would give our adversaries insight that would enable them to adjust and potentially inflict harm to the US,” remarked NSA spokesman Don Weber. An AT&T spokesman stated that the company is “not in a position to comment on matters of national security or litigation.”

While publicly stating that the NSA warrantless spying program is limited to international calls targeting Al Qaeda suspects, the administration has been careful not to imply that it is legally constrained from engaging in something much broader. On April 6, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a Senate panel that he would not rule out government authority to monitor purely domestic calls and other communications if this was necessary for the “war on terrorism.”

In a letter in late February, Gonzales noted that in remarks to the Senate that month in which he denied that the government was spying on purely domestic communications he “did not and could not address...any other classified intelligence activities” beyond what had been admitted by the government. Russell Tice, a former NSA employee, has said that the agency has authorization to engage in much broader spying as part of a top-secret “special access program.”

The logic of the administration’s argument is that it has the unlimited power to spy on anyone, including US citizens, as part of the supposed commander-in-chief authority of the president. The same justification has been used by the administration to justify arbitrary and indefinite detention, torture and other violations of basic democratic principles.

Only a few months after it was initially exposed late last year, the government’s warrantless domestic spying program has largely been dropped by both the news media and the Democratic Party. A proposed investigation was scuttled by the Senate Intelligence Committee in March. At the end of March, a proposal to censure Bush for violating the law by authorizing the NSA program received virtually no support from either party.

Whatever the extent of the current spying, the precedent set is absolutely clear: American big business is perfectly willing to aid the government in violating the democratic rights of the American people, and there will be no serious opposition from within the political establishment.

Source: www.wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/att-a18.shtml

[DT1]

The above post was quite apt,it seems.
Now,a month after it was made,I am watching it plastered all over the Corporate Media.
They even had to pump the Bush-bot full of meds and roll him out to lie to us some more.
Senator Pat Leahey held up a USA TODAY paper -
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
during Congressional hearings,which are being held as I write this....The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews...
Allllrighty,then.Guess we can change it from No Such Agency to Now Spying on Americans.
I am FURIOUS about this,and you should be,too.
The only thing more disgusting than these developments is is watching Comander Terror tell us with a straight face that this is all O.K.
"We are not mining.We are not trolling,"he assures us.
How stupid does he think we are?
Can we impeach now?
However this latest outrage shakes out,I will begin looking into a class action lawsuit against my phone company...
They have absolutely NO RIGHT to sell my account data to a third party,even if it's the damn Government.

[DT1]

Here is a very interesting post by Brad at Thinkprogress.org:

How to sue your phone company:
#1) Go to your local district court and file a small claim action for $1000 for “Illegally providing phone records to the NSA” Costs about $30.

#2) The court clerk will stamp your claim and give you a Case Number and a court date.

#3) Serve your phone company by mailing the stamped claim by registered mail. Costs about $5.
#4) Attend the court hearing. A lawyer from your phone company MUST show up to defend. If they don’t show up, you will win $1000 by default. If they do defend, you’ll at least get a chance to have your say on the record, and you might win. BUT, either way, just think how much we could cost the phone company if just 10,000 of us did this? The cost of just defending these cases would make the phone company think twice about playing ball with the feds. For an added bonus, send a copy of the claim a week before your court date to the local newspapers and you might even stir up some press.

[michelle]

Uppity Cleveland Woman Carted To Psych Hospital
By Police And Ordered To A Psych Unit By Judge
[FOR POSTING 'BUSH STEP DOWN POSTERS'; WATCH OUT OR THE THOUGHT POLICE WILL GET YOU!]
tinyurl.com/kmd5u

[michelle]

Fascist America (Audio)
Listen To Thugs From The Tennessee Police
Listen To American Law Enforcement Assaulting
An American Citizen. If It Weren't For The Quick Thinking
Of This Man's Wife To Turn On The Tape Recorder,
They Would Have Got Away With This Assault

Parental and personal discretion is strongly advised. This recording took place on American soil, in the home of an American citizen, and all in the name of our homegrown, American "war on drugs," yet some of it easily could've been sounds of torture within the walls of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It is not for the faint-of-heart, nor the weak-of-stomach.


American cops taped torturing drug suspect - LISTEN!
by Christopher Largen Sunday, May. 14, 2006 at 11:27 PM
[e-mail] 940-382-9210

One of the most important domestic stories the national media suppressed.

wms.scripps.com/knoxville/siler/siler.mp3

When Tennessee law enforcement officials showed up at the home of Lester Siler, who they suspected of drug use, they asked Lester's wife and son to leave. They didn't know that Lester's wife had turned on a tape recorder in the kitchen. When Lester exercised his constitutional right not to sign a consent to search his house, these officers spent the next two hours torturing him. They beat him with bats and guns, held loaded guns to his head, threatened to shoot him, dunked his head in the toilet, burned him with lighters, attached his testicles to a battery charger, threatened to cut off his fingers, and threatened to "go get" his wife and take his child away from him. Then they arrested him for "evading arrest". It wasn't until the wife's recording made it to the FBI that all hell broke loose. And go figure, even though these officers have been convicted in federal court, not one national media outlet gave this story the coverage it deserved. But that's okay. At the time, reporters were busy decrying the immorality of Janet Jackson's Superbowl nipple! These are the same "journalists" who refused to cover the United States Government's secretive medical marijuana program.

I'm warning you now, this is the most disturbing recording I've ever heard in my life. But people need to know about this. Our war on drugs is a failure, and the national media is following a code of silence on related humans rights abuses.

The link at the top will open the actual audio recording of the torture (some people have to copy and paste the link into thir browser to activate the link). And a web search for "Lester Siler" will give you access to further local and blog coverage of this story. [ www.building-block.org ]
Source: radio.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/9797.php

[michelle]

Meet America's New Big Brother

On February 13, 2002, Americans were warned that our nation was facing the threat of danger to homeland security. Three hours later it happened, but nobody told America.
That day, John M. Poindexter was appointed Director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office.

Who's John Poindexter?
A retired Navy Admiral, John Poindexter lost his job as National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal. [1]

What's the Information Awareness Office (IAO)?
It's a new office created by the Pentagon agency DARPA after 9/11 to gather intelligence through electronic sources like the internet, phone, and fax lines. [2]
Read The Entire Article: www.hereinreality.com/bigbrother.html
***********************************
Who Is John Poindexter?
A Convicted Felon, that's who/what he is! Many details on John Poindexter here:
www.warblogging.com/tia/poindexter.php
****************************************************
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
3701 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203-1714

Remarks as prepared for delivery by Dr. John Poindexter, Director, Information Awareness Office of DARPA, at DARPATech 2002 Conference, Anaheim, Calif., August 2, 2002

OVERVIEW OF THE INFORMATION AWARENESS OFFICE
www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/poindexter.html
****************************************************
Total/Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA): Is It Truly Dead?
EFF: It's Too Early to Tell
Snips:
In September 2003, Congress ended funding for Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) by passing HR 2658, a fiscal 2004 Defense appropriations bill that has yet to be signed by the President. But is TIA truly dead? EFF believes that it is too early to tell.

Second, while Congress eliminated funding for the Office of Information Awareness, it also expressly allowed several former TIA programs to continue, including the Bio-Event Advanced Leading Indicator Recognition Technology (Bio-ALIRT), Rapid Analytic Wargaming, Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment, and Automated Speech and Text Exploitation in Multiple Languages (including Babylon and Symphony). Of particular concern is Bio-ALIRT, which appears to incorporate dataveillance technologies in its mission model.

We also strongly support Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) Data Mining Moratorium Act (S. 188) and Senator Ron Wyden's (D-OR) Citizens' Protection in Federal Databases Act of 2003 (S. 1484), and we urge constituents to join us in this support.
READ IT ALL: www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20031003_comments.php
****************************************************
Keeping Track Of John Poindexter
By Paul Boutin Paul Boutin
2002-12-14 03:00:00.0
SNIPS:
The head of the government's Total Information Awareness project, which aims to root out potential terrorists by aggregating credit-card, travel, medical, school and other records of everyone in the United States, has himself become a target of personal data profiling. Online pranksters, taking their lead from a San Francisco journalist, are publishing John Poindexter's home phone number, photos of his house and other personal information to protest the TIA program.

One Bush voter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of the pranks on Poindexter: "If they're making him as uncomfortable as we are, good."
Read it all: www.wired.com/news/politics/0,56860-0.html
***************************************************
TO REFRESH YOUR MEMORY OF HISTORY:
"We do many things at the federal level that would be considered dishonest
and illegal if done in the private sector."
Donald T. Regan, New York Times, August 25, 1988

The Iran-Contra Scandal
www.dreamscape.com/morgana/reagan.htm

Iran-Contra
www.rotten.com/library/history/political-scandal/iran-contra
****************************************************
Did you know that at one time Poindexter wanted to do this [what a sleazeball!!]:

His blandly christened Policy Analysis Market, an online betting parlor for predicting political assassinations, revolutions and terrorist attacks in the Middle East, was quickly denounced in Congress—“unbelievably stupid,” as Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) politely put it. In late July, after conferring with the Senate’s Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner (R-Virginia), the Pentagon dropped Poindexter’s plan for the terror casino, which would have registered investors in August and opened for business in October.
FROM: www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Terror-Trading19aug03.htm
****************************************************
MANY, MANY LINKS HERE:
'Terrorism Information Awareness' (TIA)
Program Formerly Known As 'Total Information Awareness'
www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/tia/total-information-awareness.ht
***************************************************
GO TO THIS SITE FOR: www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/
Total Information Awareness
Systems Overview

Action Alerts
Ask Your Senators to Support the Data-Mining Moratorium Act of 2003!

Documents:
October 3, 2003 Total/Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA): Is It Truly Dead?
October 3, 2003 Conference Report on H.R. 2658, Department of Defence Appropriations Act, 2004 (House Report 108-283)
May 23, 2003 EFF Review of TIA Report
May 20, 2003 Report to Congress regarding the Terrorism Information Awareness Program
Letters to CIA Director George Tennet, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John Ashcroft asking that the Congressionally mandated Department of Defense report on TIA be made public.
Letter to Committee on Homeland Security regarding CAPPS II
Letter to Govenor George Pataki of New York regarding S. 1627
Comments to the Department of Transportation on CAPPS II
Comments and Analysis to the Department of Transportation on CAPPS II
Letter Opposing TIA sent to Duncan Hunter and Ike Skelton, signed by EFF and many other organizations
Senator Chuck Grassley's letter to Inspector General Joseph Schmitz (from FAS)
Senator Leahy's letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft
Senator Tom Harkin's Letter to Senator Inouye
Wyden, Feinstein, Reid, Boxer, Corzine Propose Amendment For Congressional Oversight, Accountability of Total Information Awareness Office (PDF 7MB)
Amendments Offered on TIA (from FAS)
Grassley's comments
Grassley's SA 53
Wyden's SA 59
Bills Regarding TIA Funding
S. 16 introduced by Senator Daschle
S. 188 introduced by Senator Feingold
Funding for Total Information Awareness programs Memorandum from Amy Belasco
Letter from ACM Senate Committee on Armed Services Leaders

Press Releases
Whitehouse: The New Terrorist Threat Integration Center
Feinstein: Senate Approves Wyden-Feinstein Measure to Fence Total Information Awareness Project (January 23, 2003)
EFF: Senators Seek Moratorium on Government Data-Mining, EFF Supports Privacy Protections (January 16, 2003)

Related Links:
DARPA TIA site
DARPA TIA Systems
John Poindexter, "Information Awareness Office Overview" at DARPATech 2002
slides (PDF 1.3MB)
script (PDF 52kb)
EFF Mirror: John Poindexter, "Information Awareness Office Overview" at DARPATech 2002
slides (PDF 1.3MB)
script (PDF 52kb)
Senators Inouye and Feinstein Announce Plans to Introduce Legislation to Require Congressional Authorization for Total Information Awareness Program (EFF local mirror)
NYT: Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running By JOHN MARKOFF and JOHN SCHWARTZ
New Senate chair voices concerns on information sharing, cybersecurity By William New
OP-ED: Total Information Awareness: taking the fiction out of science fiction by Lee