I think most people who are paying attention know that something really strange is going on with regard to the Authorities stemming from the incredible overreaction to protests at the Denver and St. Paul political conventions in 2008.
Yes, still. The Authorities are on a rampage against peace activists.
In Memphis the other day, a SWAT team and the FBI anti-terrorism squad showed up at a meeting of the the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center -- at a church -- to... they said... "protect" the good folks gathered there from... unnamed and unidentified antagonists.
This is absurd.
It's simple harassment meant to intimidate. Like the Authorities have been doing with the peace activists in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and elsewhere for years. It's still going on.
In this instance, activists refused to comply with the subpoenas to appear before a grand jury investigating terrorism related charges, and for the time being the subpoenas were canceled.
But of course, the whole point was to harass and intimidate.
This is an investigation, by the way, being carried out by Blogger Hero Patrick Fitzgerald, he of the endless cries of "Fitz!" and "Fitzmas!" when he was investigating the Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame business back in the day, but there is nary a word about any of his actions against peace activists in the so-called "progressive" blogosphere. Obviously some First Amendment issues are "important" to "progressive" bloggers while others, clearly, are not.
[As a side note, I suspect the nearly complete lack of interest in what "Fitz!" is up to with the peace activists in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Chicago has to do with the fact that he is a Hero among the loudest "constitutionalists" in the blogosphere for going after Libby. If he's doing something contrary to his Heroic stature, it's best not to say anything about it at all. That's how propagandists work.]
Meanwhile, the assault on the 14th Amendment continues. This assault is supposedly about doing an end run around the "birthright citizenship" clause in the amendment so as to ensure the offspring of illegales born in this country are not themselves citizens.
Steve King has introduced a measure in the House and
But ultimately, this is about undoing the "equal protection clause" in the amendment, something that has sat in the craw of Southern Rebs for generations, and something that plenty many of the rich and powerful -- along with their not-so-bright hangers on -- find meet to press at this time.
And once again, our dauntless "constitutionalist progressives" are all but silent on the matter.
It do make you wonder sometimes whose side they're on.
A few observations might, or not, lead to some clarity. In light of the massive piece on Secret America running for months now over at the Washington Post a few conclusions should be drawn by the larger “left” in the United States.
ReplyDeleteI have re-thought my own personal take on the 9/11, the Iraq war and everything, but due to space and to be realistic I’ll try the very short version.
The elite Republicans are statists just like the Democrats; they just have a very good track record of hiding it. 9/11 gave them the ideal frame work to tackle the complete remake of the American state to their collective liking. Taken in total the Washington Post series makes clear corporate America’s desire to impound and use the American treasury to their hearts content in any fashion they desire – which really is hundreds upon hundreds of state supported firms under the guise of war and security with the prize they being massive privatization of , er , well everything from schools to water districts and everything in-between. Lockheed, Boeing and general Dynamics are the tip of this iceberg and are in many ways a distraction.
One could easily site sites Shadow Stats site and build a case un-employment in the United States was roughly between 5-6% all through the 1980s and 1990s and went south way south after the DOT COM crash in 1999-2000. Knowing this and in slow motion panic long before 9/11 one need only remember, for example, how verging on bankruptcy the airline industry was before 9/11, and 9/11 became a cover to paper over twenty years of failed de-regulation of the airlines and the bubble head economics of Greenspan and the underlying steamroller rot his polices had wrought. That history and events were convenient to these folk is a understatement of the worst kind.
All the rest is history, as some will say.
The simple explanation to mind, always works best and 9/11 became the excuse to pour not only a billion or two a week into endless wars aboard, but massive handouts to the hundreds of security companies detailed in the Washington Post series. That the authors state the number of security clearances is in the neighbor of 800,000 begs the question why.
It called “make work”, for those connected to the large Republican political machine.
Hence that machine must be put to work. No one asks the relevant questions how many of these 800,000 who are supposed to be protecting us from Al-Qaeda actually can read and speak Arabic, Turkmen, Persian, or Urdu; but I’d wish someone would bet me. I wager of this 800,000 we are talking about less than few hundred, if that.
Hence I gather everyone single left blogger and registered democratic through the most obscure left group whether they are a Troskyists or a black t-shirt anti-globalist wearing activist to Code Pink and even Move-On and any poster at KOS has had a file started and are being listed as to - who to arrest first.
The Tea Party angry folk are a very obvious provocation as was the shooting recently in Tucson, not so much by design, but a larger symptom of culture in real decline which breads conflict because it has no real answers – well to anything, except violence.
I saw your comments over at Digby’s blog concerning the need to take over the Democratic party at the grass roots level and left a comment about it over at liberal America, should you want to read it.
At this point I’ll stop, as there is not much else to say.
Jackson,
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with your main points at all -- though I may quibble with a detail or two now and then.
I can describe in detail how to "take back" the Democratic Party -- because I've been on the ground doing it -- and I can easily predict the results: you'll win elections but doing so is ultimately an empty exercise. The trajectory stays the same. That trajectory is not in the public interest, and the public, for whatever reason, is mostly disengaged from their own interests, so the rightists and authoritarians run wild. "Nothing to be done."
As for the continuing harassment and roundups of the "left" -- unnoticed, of course, on the "lefty blogosphere" -- it's a tradition. Like the Drug War. Mindlessly pursued. It doesn't occur to anybody in authority not to.
Meanwhile, as for Liberal America, in a frenzy of computer changes last year, I lost LA's bookmark and so have no access thereunto. If you happen to see this comment, would you be so kind as to post the link to LA?
'Preciate it!
http://www.network54.com/Forum/259017/
ReplyDeleteBueno!
ReplyDelete