Wolf writes: "And with a new bill now being introduced to make it a crime to protest in a way that disrupts any government process - or to get close to anyone with secret service protection - the push to legally lock down the United Police States is in full force."
Ms. Wolf speaking at National Lawyers Guild Forum, in New York, January 23, 2009. (photo: Thomas Good/NLN)
NDAA: Clear and Present Danger to American Liberty
01 March 12
es, the worst things you may have heard about the National Defense Authorization Act, which has formally ended 254 years of democracy in the United States of America, and driven a stake through the heart of the bill of rights, are all really true. The act passed with large margins in both the House and the Senate on the last day of last year – even as tens of thousands of Americans were frantically begging their representatives to secure Americans' habeas corpus rights in the final version.
It does indeed – contrary to the many flatout-false form letters I have seen that both senators and representatives sent to their constituents, misleading them about the fact that the NDAA destroys their due process rights. Under the act, anyone can be described as a 'belligerent". As the New American website puts it,
"[S]ubsequent clauses (Section 1022, for example) unlawfully give the president the absolute and unquestionable authority to deploy the armed forces of the United States to apprehend and to indefinitely detain those suspected of threatening the security of the 'homeland'. In the language of this legislation, these people are called 'covered persons'.
"The universe of potential 'covered persons' includes every citizen of the United States of America. Any American could one day find himself or herself branded a 'belligerent' and thus subject to the complete confiscation of his or her constitutional civil liberties and nearly never-ending incarceration in a military prison."
And with a new bill now being introduced to make it a crime to protest in a way that disrupts any government process – or to get close to anyone with secret service protection – the push to legally lock down the United Police States is in full force.
Overstated? Let's be clear: the NDAA grants the president the power to kidnap any American anywhere in the United States and hold him or her in prison forever without trial. The president's own signing statement, incredibly, confirmed that he had that power. As I have been warning since 2006: there is not a country on the planet that you can name that has ever set in place a system of torture, and of detention without trial, for an "other", supposedly external threat that did not end up using it pretty quickly on its own citizens.
And Guantánamo has indeed come home: Guantánamo is in our front yards now and our workplaces; it did not even take much more than half a decade. On 1 March, the NDAA will go into effect – if a judicial hearing scheduled for this week does not block it – and no one in America, no US citizen, will be safe from being detained indefinitely – in effect, "disappeared.".
As former Reagan official, now Ron Paul supporter, Bruce Fein points out, on 1 March, we won't just lose the bill of rights; we will lose due process altogether. We will be back at the place where we were, in terms of legal tradition, before the signing of the Magna Carta – when kings could throw people in prison at will, to rot there forever. If we had cared more about what was being done to brown people with Muslim names on a Cuban coastline, and raised our voices louder against their having been held without charge for years, or against their being tried in kangaroo courts called military tribunals, we might now be safer now from a new law mandating for us also the threat of abduction and fear of perpetual incarceration.
We didn't care, or we didn't care enough – and here we are. We acclimated, we got distracted, the Oscars were coming up … but the fake "battlefield" was brought home to us, now real enough. Though it is not "we" versus Muslims in this conflict; it is our very own government versus "us". As one of my Facebook community members remarked bitterly, of our House representatives, our Senate leaders and our president, "They hate our freedoms."
The NDAA is, in the words of Shahid Buttar of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, "the worst threat to civil liberties since COINTELPRO. It gives the government the power to presume guilt rather than innocence, and indefinitely imprison anyone accused of a 'belligerent act' or terror-related offense without trial." He points out that it gives future presidents the power to arrest their political critics. That may even be understating things: it is actually, in my view, the worst threat to civil liberty in the US since habeas corpus was last suspended, during the American civil war.
On a conference call for media last Friday, hosted by the cross-partisan BORDC (which now includes the 40,000 members of the American Freedom Campaign, which we had co-founded as a response to the warning in 2007 that America was facing a "fascist shift") and the right-leaning Tenth Amendment Foundation, we were all speaking the same language of fear for our freedom, even though our perspectives spanned the political spectrum. As the Tenth Amendment Foundation put it, we are a family with diverse views – and families know when it is time to put aside their differences. If there were ever a time to do so, it is now.
This grassroots effort is pushing hard in many places. Protests that included libertarians, progressives, Tea Party members and Occupy participants have been held nationwide in recent weeks. State legislators in Virginia, Tennessee, and Washington have also introduced bills to prevent state agencies from aiding in any detention operations that might be authorized by the NDAA. In other words, they are educating sheriffs and police to refuse to comply with the NDAA's orders. This presents an Orwellian or 1776-type scenario, depending upon your point of view, in which the federal government, or even the president, might issue orders to detain US citizens – which local sheriffs and police would be legally bound to resist.
What will happen next? I wrote recently that the US is experiencing something like a civil war, with only one side at this point – the corporatist side – aggressing. This grassroots, local-leader movement represents a defensive strategy in what is being now tacitly recognized as unprovoked aggression against an entire nation, and an entire people. (Here I should say, mindful of the warning issued to me by NYPD, which arrested me, to avoid saying anything that could be construed as "incitement to riot" and that I believe in nonviolent resistance.)
The local resistance to the police state goes further: midwestern cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, are considering "torture-free city" resolutions that would prohibit the torture which civil libertarians see as likely under a military detention regime expanded by the NDAA. (Bradley Manning's initial treatment in solitary confinement, for instance, met some Red Cross definitions of torture.)
But I am far more scared than hopeful, because nothing about the NDAA's legislative passage worked as democracy is supposed to work. Senator Dianne Feinstein, for instance, in spite of her proposed (defeated) amendment that could have defended due process more completely, has nonetheless not fought to repeal the law – even though her constituents in California would, no doubt, overwhelmingly support her in doing so. Huge majorities passed this bill into law – despite the fact that Americans across the spectrum were appalled and besieging their legislators. And this president nailed it to the table – even though his own constituency is up in arms about it.
History shows that at this point, there isn't much time to mount a defense: once the first few arrests take place, people go quiet. There is only one solution: organize votes loudly and publicly to defeat every single signer of this bill in November's general election. Then, once we have our Republic back and the rule of law, we can deal with the actual treason that this law represents.
• In place of her weekly Q&A, Naomi Wolf will be responding to comments in the discussion thread here immediately on publication
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Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
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If you want real and meaningful change. you need to understand the difference between simply changing faces and changing policies.
Government was created to protect inherent rights of the individual people, not to protect the power of those who govern the masses.
As for the US Constitution, it made the Federal government stronger by doing away with the weak articles of Confederation which had stronger states rights.
Individual laws are there to protect the citizens; however as for Government existing to protect the ruling class, I believe you may be right. Historically that has been the effect of government. We see the evidence of this in two US laws, The Patriot Act and NDAA. Their purpose is to protect the ruling class. We can expect to see more laws along this line, each circumventing another Right!
what's the point. we need open rebellion, a general strike and a moratorium on voting altogether
Everything done to the people in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., was practice for the "Homeland" (Zionist Fascist term, btw).
However, it is a GERMAN (i.e. Nazi) term from the Third 'Reich' and any conclusions you might want to come to regarding this, Bush's uncle's known dealings with Hitler, Cheney's arrogant predilections to absolute power with no regrets, and Bush's weird devoiced 'z's at the ends of words i.e. , [boys] [dogs] for for the normal phonetic [boyz], [dogz] etc.
(are probably likely to be correct insofar as conspiracy theories go... .)
What do you make of President Obama's signing statement, essentially promising never to use his power to detain American citizens? Is it an empty promise? Does it leave open the possibility for future presidents to assume this power?
Also, were not these powers already in effect with the passage of the Patriot Act, as long as American citizens were deemed enemy combatants (with a wide definition being used of what that actually constitutes)? Did this bill do anything to further the powers already granted under the Patriot Act? If so, what?
He waits till it is forgotten then the first roundup begins, fear sets in and the sheeple fall into line (or get swept up in the second round).. Vote them out? we could try (assuming elections are fair or existent).. "they" have from MAR to NOV to clamp down while we wait to vote. WE be SCROD.
Here's a copy of the video and a transcript:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/obama-national-archives-s_n_206189.html
The degeneration of the whole political classes in Western class states reveals that the class compromising, Empire appeasement have crossed into totalitarianism and FASCISM. All political class ideologies have degenerated into the Weimar corruption and appeasement of Fascist austerity, Fascist, Late capitalism. Liberals have become, devolved, morphed into Fascist themselves through the same Patriarchal class and BETRAYING/CORRU PTING historical mechanism which usurped social control, social principles and its social historical mechanism that was once part of the Matriarchy.
CO OPTION, INVERSION, CORRUPTION are the deformed links of class hierarchies which make up the class history, from Patriarchy to Fascist , Late capitalism. It is used to hide class tyranny, produce class deformed language to steal social power and votes from its social classes.
What does Hitler, Mussolini, Franco have in common with Koch brothers and Liberal class whores??? They share the same class dogmas, Patriarchal class mechanism which betrays the social masses.
"Americans For Prosperity" Co-opts "Occupy" Name
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Americans-For-Prosperity-by-Daily-kos-120301-402.html
The Science and Ethics of Austerity: Lessons from the US and Europe
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/01-9
www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/01-9
is brilliant:
"job- creating effects of military spending. The current wisdom is that military spending creates jobs, whereas spending on schools and public transit systems is wasted. Yet the same methodologies that demonstrate the job- creating effect of military spending show gains for domestic spending as well. Why is evidence in one case accepted but not in the other? The military budget is coded in terms of opposition to an external enemy and in support of our free enterprise, self-reliant system. The other is often portrayed as unmerited support for the poor, those who are as not merely lacking in self-reliance and hard work but as thereby active enemies of and threats to our values, thus in much the same terms we construe foreign enemies."
read ..
There were no indepdendent constitutional lawyers, like Glenn Greenwald to challange the LIES OF THE DEMOCRATS who tried to pose Obama's veto as opposition to Fascism, when in fact he wanted MORE FASCISM. Hope Glenn Greenwald writes on this CORRUPT, DUPLICITY, PROPAGANDA of the liberal whores, who shilled for corporate, State Fascism and the POLICE STATE.
And True Patriots, all those standing against this corporate-fasci st madness, being branded with those, well, extreme insults really, and akin to "wolfishly" calling, "Fire!", in a crowded theater, has undoubtedly already got all of us who stand up against these fascist injustices, branded as some of the first to soon be taken away and "disappeared", as the globalists are preparing for right now by putting such unconstitutiona l "laws" into place...
For some additional background and commentary:
http://lookingglass.blog.co.uk/2012/03/01/the-bottom-line-12967343/
Trust your government, they know what they are doing.
This legislation has already placed in jeopardy the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th, amendments to the bill of Rights and may have successfully made an end run around the constitution carving out yet another exception.
Do you honestly believe so many of our elected officials from both the Republican and Democratic Party are just stupid? I don’t buy that logic! There is more going on than we care to talk about because we are still focused on the belief in a pseudo two party system.
While we banter between these two parties, we are kept occupied with diversions to provide red herrings for us to debate. While they move ahead with plans to close all our doors to Democracy and Freedom. This is their plan! George W. Bush made it clear, "it would be easier if this were a dictatorship"
The Bush family as well as Wall Street believers in fascism, and we are being duped into following their lead through the two parties they control.
It is now too late to salvage our Democracy. When we had the opportunity they kept us divided. Now we keep ourselves divided through ignorance.
This sounds like smugness personified with a measure of arrogance. Ms Wolf put her body on the line in "Occupy" and was dragged off to jail by the forces she is analyzing here. When did you last go out and get active for a cause. -And please don't speak for "us RSN readers"; that too is a pointed presumption that we are as similarly blinkered and mean-spirited.
And to presume on the strength of a photo, that someone is "looking down (their) nose at---" is verging on the spiteful.
Enjoy y'r (apparently) lock-step life if you can -I don't hear any humor here except the vacuous and clichéd "lol"; just a snide bitterness.
It is worth noting that the present NDAA is a revival of the 2006 NDAA, which included a significant rewriting of the 1807 Insurrection Act to include natural disasters, public health emergencies, and all manner of vague "issues" as justification for use of the military as law enforcement. That version of the NDAA was repealed in 2008. But now...it's B-A-A-A-A-A-C-K!
Time will tell whether expressing an opposing opinion is sufficient "obstruction" of the government process (the Soviet term was "wrecking") to justify "disappearing" me. No doubt you know where to find me, gentleman. But if you come to take me away, expect the process to be as difficult as I can make it.
"Huge majorities passed this bill into law – despite the fact that Americans across the spectrum were appalled and besieging their legislators. And this president nailed it to the table – even though his own constituency is up in arms about it."
Alas, that makes her subsequent statement absurd:
"There is only one solution: organize votes loudly and publicly to defeat every single signer of this bill in November's general election."
For how is one to "organize votes" against present-day officeholders when the mere act of opposing the status quo can now be defined as terrorism?
Yet the multitudes remain steadfast in "it-can't-happe n-here" denial.
As in Germany c. 1932, so in the United States c. 2012: welcome to the Fourth Reich.
We who cherish freedom are more terribly alone than ever in human history, for this time there is no army of liberation anywhere on this planet.
Activitsts" but the significance and danger of the NDAA law seems to be not understood. MOST of think that if Obama is re-elected, that will solve the problem, or he would never use it, or as long as the Republicans aren't in office we have no need to worry.
"In Praise of Distrust" (Excerpt follows)
They used to do it subtly; they don’t bother any more. Last week a column in the Telegraph argued that businesses should get the vote. Though they pay tax, Damian Reece maintained, they have “no say in the running of local or national government”(1). To remedy this cruel circumscription , he suggested that elections in the UK should follow the example set by the City of London Corporation. This is the nation’s last rotten borough, in which ballots in 21 of its 25 wards are controlled by companies, whose bosses appoint the voters.
Contrast this call for an extension of the franchise with a piece in the same paper last year, advocating an income qualification for voters. Only those who pay at least £100 a year in income tax, argued Ian Cowie, another senior editor at the Telegraph, should be allowed to vote(3). Blaming the credit crisis on the unemployed (who, as we know, lie in bed all day devising credit default swaps and collateralised debt obligations), Cowie averred that “it’s time to restore the link between paying something into society and voting on decisions about how it is run.” This qualification, he was good enough to inform us, could exclude “the majority of voters in some metropolitan areas today”.
Interesting that England has its own version of our troubles. (continued)
(Excerpt follows) "The use of so-called thinktanks on both sides of the Atlantic seems to me to mirror the use of super political action committees (superPACs) in the US. Since the Supreme Court removed the limits on how much one person could give to a political campaign, the billionaires have achieved almost total control over politics. An article last week on TomDispatch revealed that in 2011 just 196 donors provided nearly 80% of the money raised by superPACs(16).
The leading Republican candidates have all but abandoned the idea of mobilising popular support. Instead they use the huge funds they raise from billionaires to attack the credibility of their opponents through television ads. Yet more money is channelled through 501c4 groups – tax-exempt bodies supposedly promoting social welfare – which (unlike the superPACs) don’t have to reveal the identity of their donors. TomDispatch notes that “serving as a secret slush fund for billionaires evidently now qualifies as social welfare."
It is interesting to speculate as to how much coordination might be going on in the simultaneous takeover of government by corporations in the US, England - and how many other countries? Watch out for the "military-indus trial complex" indeed.
Oddly and Ominously, there is a very reliable rumor that a gentleman in my hometown outside of Philadelphia was picked up by Homeland Security, ostensibly on some sort of Tax Charge along with, purportedly, a Sex Sting charge. The story goes the black suv's showed up and officers with police on their t-shirts went in and confiscated records and arrested him. The Story also goes that he has been denied bail but hant been charged....in other words detained in a new jersey or philadelphia federal prison
Many liberal voters are not concerned which I do not understand.
Most Major Media, also 'In Step'.
'Check Mate' on the Greatest experiment in Democracy the World has ever known?
Where is Luke Skywalker when we need him?
Now Netanyahoo is coming to Washington next week to give Obama his marching orders on Iran. Obama has suggested that they can sign a joint resolution following the AIPAC meeting. Does anyone have any wonder who will write this resolution? Obama will cave in to pressure from AIPAC and will do what Netanyahoo tells him to do. I'd say that 80% of Americans are sick of Israel by now and would really love to have a president who stood up to Israel and the Israeli lobby. Again the right thing for Obama to do is clear. But he will do what he is told to do by people who are simply more vicious than he. He's being bullied and he cannot stand up straight.
The progressives who elected Obama just forgot that they need to exert more pressure on him than the fascist party does. We elected him and then left him alone to deal with the fascist party. He caved in all cases. We need to exert more pressure -- such as a clear statement that he act like a progressive or we'll give the whore house to Romney or Gingrich. The Dems think we don't have anywhere to go.
A controversial speaker in Chicago gave a 4 hour talk on issues affecting Black America this past weekend. He spoke about what you say in your comment about Obama being bullied, pressured, caving in. He went further saying that the neocons may just find a Muslim patsy to "assassinate" him. This would get the American people on board to go all out against the Muslim world. Very scary!
Obama has a lot on his plate and being a very young President with a family you have to in some way feel for him because in his heart he wants to do right but if he is being threatened
what can he do?
They now control all three branches of the US Government. The bantering among congress is more for show, as will be this election. We are being diverted from the real issues by the money game and the use of the billionaires Pac’s.
It’s all a diversion until the election is over, then its back to the plan. War, military spending and I suspect a draft to sustain the next 100 years of war.
The only way to stop their plans is not to fight the Corporations wars. But we all know that Americans are too dumb to see that.
are as complacent as a senile elderly
person being fed by an equally complacent
media.
And how can it be different, when there
are so few investigative journalists
writing mostly in alternative media
that the majority of the American people
never see.
Bravo ! to Naomi Wolf
As more states (and the feds) shift over to privatized prison systems, the "need" will be to fill them (empty cells aint profitable). That's where NDAA will come in handy.
Since corporate crime is no longer punishable by US law, and since violent crime has trended significantly downward since the 90s, that really leaves only 2 types of crime to fill those prisons: debt-"crime" and opposition to the government -- both of which are the most significant existing terrorist threats to our "capitalist-dem ocratic" way of life.
Otherwise, the rest of your comment is right-on and excellent.
GOD AND THE PEOPLE SAVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!
Thank you, but I beg to differ on the readiness. I too fear the rise of something worse than stalin or hitler. But it's comparing apples and oranges. The US is what 12-15 times more populous than Germany in 1930 with about 50-70 times more area. Both Stalin and hitler built up from collapsed systems. The US must build it in at the top. Name me another country in which fascism (et al) has been imposed from the top down on a relatively strong populace (ancient athens under cleon & alciabiades? again, small).
Yes they are using and will use many of old techniques (and new technology), but a full-scale revolt leading to full-scale repression? full-scale roundups to privatized gulags? Im just not seeing it -- yet
Now we have a visible RULING CLaASS in WashingtonDC, and an invisible RULING CLASS in New York City. Most of the NYC crowd hold duel citizenship and only look at America as a place to raise money with their financial games. Money they use to fund their true love, Israel. They had the NDAA passed because they realize that Americans in the Midwest are getting restless and starting to non-violently revolt , by openly defying the EPA, and what they consider to be attacks on their desired lifestyle by court rulings funded by the ACLU, and enforced by the Federal Government. The occupy movement will encounter U.S. troops this summer, thanks to this bill.
Divide and conquer, That is how the 1% easily stay in power.
Make up endless little fictions for factions to keep them fighting among them selves and pick off any leader that rises up that look like they may actually see through the fog of bs and get the people united.
Each item represents an aspect of public policy that could protect US from their GREED and enhance our 'public' influence of their actions. Philosophically , the 1% don't think average citizens have the intelligence, experience or foresight to "understand" how things are 'supposed to work'. We are the labor and consumption critters they profit FROM, not the fellow citizens who work to make an improving opportunity and quality of life. With "Citizens United" they finally have the opportunity to express, individually with MONEY, the rank shortsightednes s of their individual weaknesses and fears.
Adelson slinks behind his backroom labor dealings in Macau and Las Vegas with compulsion to be world's richest. Friese's aspirin focus demonstrates his sophomoric, wimpy misogyny. Romney can't tell the jokes OR effectively convey his 'success' as a leader who benefits people's lives. They may not be able to tie their own shoes, but we LET THEM focus US on one another instead of on THEM.
The et. al. in this case of the century are numerous plaintiffs, many of whom are ethical, truthtelling journalists and whistleblowing activists (i.e. Daniel Ellsberg), all of whom see their highly probable, indefinite jailing coming, with no due process and/or habeas corpus. In other words, the 1% and their Kochsucking minions are, with NDAA and Oh Bomb Ah's signing vs. vetoing it, putting the icing on their coup d'etat. Liberty and justice for all? In the toilet, along with rule of law.
The judge in federal district court, continued the TRO motion hearing to March 29, rather than granting the motion for temporary restraining order and thereby temporarily not allowing to go forward this worse than any law the Bush puppet signed onto being (i.e. anything but patriotic Patriot Act, giving birth to Homeland Security).
And now, while the 'mess' media spends countless hours over-covering karlroving MSD (manipulation, spin, distraction) stories such as removal of reproduction rights of women, Greedy Old Party election caca, etc., this vital that all the public know what's going on story is nearly invisible.
Please, RSN, run stories on each of the plaintiffs in this case, and challenge the press to give this the coverage it must have, if our children and generations to come are to not be totally enslaved by the 1% and their minions.
POLICE STATE AIN'T GREAT!!!
It must be just more of his need to prove to the GOP that he is "tough on defense." (Got to win re-election)
Americans have been watching for the last ten years as our treasured liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution are stripped from us.
The country needs to wake up fast!
Disjointed components of our pluralistic 'free' society regularly entertain fantasies of universal cooperation and agreement as a means to achieve progress or defend against change. American history reeks with the seesaw conflict of plutocracy vs. democracy: Revolution, Constitutional debates, public education, emancipation and Civil War, the robber barons and Trust busting, the war to end war, universal suffrage, Great Depression and social safety net, desegregation and civil rights, deregulation and OCCUPY.
All aspects of the creation and adjustment of the democratic experiment that IS the USA seem to be accomplished through conflict. Democratically elected GOVERNMENT has protected expanded individual rights and opportunities. Private institutional and business interests have resisted and consistently opposed these changes.
Today the internet, cell phone communication and public awareness are in direct conflict with money and power for the ownership of the government "of, for and by" the people. Money and powerehave decided to BUY 'government' (elected officials and legislation) at ALL levels - Federal, State and local is their GOAL. Propaganda, (un)think tanks, voting suppression, dismantling of the social safety net, union busting, anti education, anti environment, anti welfare, and SuperPACs and misinformation are their MEANS. PROFIT is their justification and their TOOL.
see Part 2
On to Part 2.
Safe Streets Acts, Patriot Act, NDAA, "new" ideas of 'torture' are promoted to protect "patriots" (citizens who show adulation and obeisance to our SYMBOLS, the Flag, Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem). "UN"patriotic "dissidents" are characterized by Money and Power (and the media they own)as unwashed, lazy, criminal or misinformed Anti American, Anti capitalist, anti Profit anarchists ... the OTHER.
Efforts by citizens to implement our RIGHTS of SPEECH, ASSEMBLY and REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES have been met with FORCE from 'public' authorities who use shock grenades, tanks, tear gas and physical abuse to execute and enforce "RULES" designed by Money and Power to restrict OUR principles and rights. ELECTED 'officials' and police and military, and Homeland Security and Congresspersons and President and sUPREME Court are OUR employees. They are paid with OUR tax dollars to serve and protect OUR interests and needs.
Perhaps we need to OCCUPY USA by taking some time to 'reflect' on the direction Money and Power have been leading us. Taking Mondays and Fridays OFF from ALL activities - flying, driving, working, schooling, BUYING, using less or no gasoline ... spending 4 days a week THINKING about our individual and collective abilities to LEAD our own lives toward our individual and collective goals ... and 3 days a week working for Money and Power. PROFIT, a NEW bottom line ... maybe they could think more about the US in USA!
They are being taught, God help us, that the Founding Fathers and therefore all of the colonists who faught in the American Revolution were supposedly "terrorists", that all those Americans who carry copies of the Constitution with them are supposedly "(potential?) terrorists", and that those Americans who "talk too much about the Constitution" are supposedly "terrorists" as well!...
Those same military and law enforcement personnel now believe that human rights and civil liberties are so-called "privileges" that can be withheld at whim, and they don't understand that RIGHTS ARE RIGHTS, and are NOT privileges, and that they CANNOT be taken away; because, even if the authorities believe that they have (righteously and justifiably) taken them away, they are still there and those who they are violating still possess them NO MATTER WHAT. Thus, they just don't see that attempting to take those rights away and/or violating them is the ultimate crime, and a crime just as bad if not worse than violating criminal or felony laws, particularly if they violently abuse those whose rights they are violating and/or attempting to take away...
That is what the great Founding Father of the U.S., Patrick Henry, meant when he said, "...(G)ive me liberty or give me death!" For what he was conveying is that without True Liberty and Freedom, our lives aren't worth living anyway, so we might as well fight to the death in the defense of True Freedom and Liberty, than to complacently, apathetically, pathetically, slavishly and cowardly lay down, give up, bow down, surrender and capitulate to those True Liberties and Freedoms being dishonored, trampled in the dirt, spit upon, disrespected and destroyed!...
(Written very much with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.)
God bless you; fully awaken you; truly, fully and completely transform and restore you to Him; and protect all of you! With all of my love to, and desire for nothing but the very best for, each and every one of you, your fellow-True-Ame rican for nothing but True Liberty and Freedom.
Can´t Naomi Wolf on behalf of the
Americans, sue and impeach the President
for violating the Constitution.
People versus Obama!
Let stop re-writing history and put the blame where it belongs on the do nothing acting like spoiled children with their my way or no way attitude Congress.
Its time for America to have a peaceful version of the Bolshevik Revolution putting the people in charge & the criminal 1% in jail.
Let the DEM & GOP 1% fight it out for President. While the 99% grass root movement, quietly takes over the Congress, State & local government. Platform includes: public financing of election campaigns with absolutely no private money allowed, 2; freeing the news by requiring it be broadcast as a public service without influence from sponsors, foreign & domestic governments. 3; repeal all legislation that reduces civil rights Patriot ACT, NDAA. 4; redefine the roll of the USA military to protecting USA borders. 5; return troops, all equipment & supplies to the continental USA for public audit. 6; cancel all military contracts except those that directly support the troops until audit is complete & mission redefined. 7; re-assign construction equipment & supplies to domestic reconstruction of infrastructure & expansion & update of communication, transportation & information system so that every citizen has access to these services.
Change is possible however we must throw off 100'd of years of feudalistic brainwashing that keeps the power & wealth in the hands of the 1% in order to do it.
The essential point of Klein's book is that groups that want to take control of a country often quietly put all the ideas and tools of repression in place, then when something scary and shocking happens, they're ready with the laws and organization to take over.
Remember 9/11 and the USA Patriot Act? The act suddenly came out of "nowhere" all written up and ready for a frightened Congress to approve. Sometimes the scary event is planned, sometimes an opportunity arises- the point is to be ready with "answers" to all the scary things, answers that just happen to allow The Authorities to round up and indefinitely detain everyone who threatens Law And Order.
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