The Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been kept largely hidden from public circumspection.  It is a working draft that is intended to culminate into the substantive body of an international treaty geared toward the establishment of internationally recognized laws and enforcement procedures designed to curtail IP, (intellectual property crimes).

Judging from some of the stipulations iterated in the few snippets of the working draft that have been leaked to the public, it is no wonder that American government officials are attempting to install these provisions through the circuitous route of an internation treaty adoption.  By bypassing the committees and deliberative procedures followed by the Congressional bodies when crafting legislation, the controversial measures will be less conspicuous to the public and will enter into law through a single ratification.

The writings currently contained in the drafts of the treaty call for ex parte searches of parties who are expected to be in possession of stolen intellectual property.  Further, the treaty calls for an ex officio authority that can take action against those accused of IP, even in the absence of any complaint leveled by the party from whom the intellectual property has allegedly been stolen.

To put it plainly, the current Administration, since it could never pass these incursions to American civil liberties through conventional legislative processes in which there would be more prolific debate and more abundant publicity, is attempting to bypass our normal and more sanguine procedures for passing legislation by instituting these laws and enforcement powers through the adoption of an international treaty.

Russell Cole:

I have pasted the contents of the leaked document below:

Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
The proliferation of infringements of intellectual property rights (”IPR”) particularly in the context of counterfeiting and piracy poses an ever-increasing threat to the sustainable development of the world economy. The consequences of such IPR infringements include (l) depriving legitimate businesses and their workers of income; (2) discouraging innovation and creativity; (3) threatening consumer health and safety; (4) providing an easy source of revenue for organized crime; and (5) loss of tax revenue.
Objective and Scope
Establish, among nations committed to strong IPR protection, a common standard for IPR enforcement to combat global infringements of IPR particularly in the context of counterfeiting and piracy that addresses today’s challenges, in terms of increasing international cooperation, strengthening the framework of practices that contribute to effective enforcement of IPRs, and strengthening relevant IPR enforcement measures themselves. 1
Vehicle
A plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
Parties
In the initial phase, it is important to join a number of interested trading partners in setting out the parameters for an enforcement system that will function effectively in today’s environment. As a second phase, other countries would have the option to join the agreement as part of an emerging consensus in favor of a strong IPR enforcement standard.
Provisions
Provisions could be organized into three main categories:
International Cooperation: Cooperation among the parties to the agreement is a key component of the agreement - including sharing of information and cooperation between our law enforcement authorities, including Customs and other relevant agencies.
Enforcement Practices: It is necessary to establish enforcement practices that promote strong intellectual property protection in coordination with right holders and trading partners. Such “best practices” would support the application of the relevant legal tools, as outlined by the Legal Framework.
1 Members shall provide for the provisions related to criminal enforcement and border measures to be applied at least in cases of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy. Members may provide for such provisions to be applied in other cases of infringement of IPR.
Legal Framework: It is critical to have a strong and modern legal framework so that law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, and private citizens have the most up-to-date tools necessary to effectively bring counterfeiters and pirates to justice.
As in all multilateral negotiations, appropriate flexibilities would be taken into consideration to accommodate the various basic legal systems in place in the potential ACTA members, without compromising the overall objectives of ACTA.
We have set out below examples of the types of provisions that could be included in the agreement.
International Cooperation
-     Recognition that international enforcement cooperation is vital and should be encouraged regardless of the location of the right holder or the origination of the infringing item;
Capacity building and technical assistance in improving enforcement, including training for developing country parties to the agreement and training for third countries;
International cooperation among enforcement agencies, including commitment to undertake cooperative enforcement actions where appropriate, and exchange of best practices and information for use in enforcement actions; Periodic opportunity for governments and public/private advisory groups to meet and share best practices.
Enforcement cooperation should be consistent with existing international agreements.
2. Enforcement Practices (provisions designed to foster a climate of active and effective enforcement of relevant IPR laws)
- Formal or informal public/private advisory groups;
Fostering of specialized intellectual property expertise within law enforcement structures to ensure effective handling of IPR cases;
Measures for raising consumer public awareness about the importance of IPR protection and the detrimental effects ofIPR infringements;
Publication of enforcement procedures and information relating to enforcement actions both internally and at the border;
Sharing of information with the public should be without prejudice to the need to protect investigative techniques, confidential law enforcement information, and privacy rights;
Commitment to sustain internal coordination among, and facilitate joint action by, domestic government agencies concerned with IPR enforcement through establishment of coordination bodies or other mechanisms.
3. Legal Framework (provisions designed to ensure that authorities and right holders have appropriate tools for strong IP R enforcement)
Criminal enforcement:
- criminal sanctions (in addition to civil or, where applicable, administrative liability) to be applied to IPR infringements on a commercial scale:
IPR infringements for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner (e.g., Internet piracy), II imports and exports,
II knowingly trafficking in counterfeit labels which are intended to be used on protected goods;
- ex officio authority to take action against infringers ti,e., authority to act without complaint by right holders);
- establishment and imposition of deterrent-level penalties and/or other measures to promote deterrence (e.g. non-binding guidelines);
- authority to seize and destroy IPR infringing goods and equipment and materials used to make them;
- destruction of IPR infringing goods and seizure of equipment and materials, used to make IPR infringing goods in criminal cases;
- authority to seize and forfeit illegal proceeds connected to IPR infringements.
Border Measures:
-     ex officio authority for customs authorities to suspend import, export and trans-shipment of suspected IPR infringing goods;
procedures for right holders to initiate suspension by customs authorities of import, export and trans-shipment of suspected IPR infringing goods; measures to ensure the seizure and destruction of IPR infringing goods; Allocation of liability for storage and destruction fees between the importer/exporter and the right holder, and/or the appropriate government agency, so as not to place unreasonable burdens on right holders;
authority to impose deterrent penalties,;
authority to disclose key information about infringing shipments to right holders;
measures to ensure that goods are not released into channels of commerce without right holder permission in cases where the goods have been determined by the competent authorities to be infringing IPR.
Civil enforcement:
- Authority to order ex parte searches and other preliminary measures;
- Authority to order preservation of documentary evidence;
- Damages adequate to compensate, including measures to overcome the
problem of right holders not being able to get sufficient compensation due to difficulty in assessing the full extent of damage;
- Provisions for judicial authorities to order the infringer to pay the right holder, in appropriate cases, reasonable legal fees and costs.
Optical disc piracy:
- Measures to address large-scale illegal optical disc (OD) production for countries that have large-scale illegal OD production.
Internet distribution and information technology:
- Legal regime, including safeguards for Internet service providers (ISPs) from liability, to encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material;
- Procedures enabling right holders who have given effective notification of a claimed infringement to expeditiously obtain information identifying the alleged infringer;
- Remedies against circumvention of technological protection measures used by copyright owners and the trafficking of circumvention devices.
Dispute settlement:
- Resolve implementation issues through oversight by committee of Parties and/or other cooperative mechanisms.
Other Provisions:
- Special measures for developing countries in the initial phase.

Tags: congress, constitution, corporations, economics, foreign policy, Global
Categories: Commentary, Global, Economics, Congress, Corporations, Foreign Policy
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It is time for Harry Reid – the Majority Leader of the Democrats – to strip Joe Lieberman of his Chair on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

In the past week, Lieberman has made several outrageous comments, directed at Obama, that were malicious and dishonest. Lieberman, who apparently has assumed the role of hit man for the McCain Campaign, has slurred the kind of rhetoric we should expect of a Fox peon, such as Hannity; someone who is utterly bankrupt when it comes to intellectual integrity and will say anything in order to defend any of his partisan positions.

Lieberman went so far as to accuse Obama, reverberating what was babbled by Bush when speaking in Israel, of advocating a foreign policy of appeasement when it comes to dealing with terrorists in Muslim countries.

For clarification, Lieberman should, at the very least, identity to whom he is precisely referring when he uses the term, terrorists. Is he referring to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, whom this country has ignored for the most part over the past 5 years, in order to direct our military resources toward the invasion and pacification of Iraq; a country that had no connections to terrorism prior to our destabilization of the foundations of their society? Moreover, what ‘head of state’ – or, more plainly, what fictional leadership is Lieberman alluding to when he invokes this vacuous terminology, using references, such as ‘appeasing terrorists,’ as though American is at war with an integrated, cohesive adversary in possession of a body politic capable of conducting diplomacy?

Perhaps even worse, Lieberman said that the fact that the supposed, according to the McCain Campaign, North American spokesman for Hamas has ‘endorsed,’ Obama raises justifiable concerns over Obama’s candidacy for President. No doubt speaking to the most uninformed and intellectual impoverished segments of America’s electorate, Lieberman asserted that Hamas actually endorses American candidates for President, as though Hamas is entirely oblivious to the fact that their public support of a candidate would probably have only negative effects for that individual’s campaign.

How stupid does Lieberman think that we are? and to what depths will he sink in order to propagate his militaristic vision for the United State’s role in the Middle East? a policy of aggression that is so unmistakably a reflection of right-wing Israeli colonialist interests; certainly not the foreign policy interests of the United States.

At this point, Lieberman, in my own assessment, is more a cartoon character than a statesman who embodies the prudence and judicious temperaments that one would expect of a Chair for one of the Senate’s most influential committees.

It is time for Harry Reid to strip Lieberman of all of the privileges he has acquired through his accumulation of seniority as a Democratic, because Lieberman – judging from his performance when campaigning as Vice Presidential nominee to Gore’s Presidential bid – never was a Democrat from the beginning.

Russell Cole

Tags: american empire, congress, foreign policy, Harry Reid, homeland security, Joe Lieberman, politics, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Terrorism
Categories: Commentary, Politics, Congress, Homeland Security, Terrorism
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When will the Green Party ever learn?

When, finally, will the Green Party accrue the wisdom necessary for it to recognize the false prophets that come under the pretenses that they can transform the Party from its presently obscure and politically inconsequential status. Such charlatans publicly pronounce their affinity for Green Values. However, more times than not, the opaque agenda of such aspiring politicos incorporates the Green Party as merely a vehicle for personal political aggrandizement.

As it stands now, the Green Party suffers from a lustful wish to become a competitor in mainstream politics. As a result, the Green Party is always seeking to run candidates for high level governmental positions; political offices that any Green Candidate possesses a less than negligible chance for winning; or, for that matter, to even marginally compete with the candidates nominated by the two major business parties; and, more likely, the Green Candidate will either fail to acquire a slot on the ballot, or, under the remarkable condition that ballot access is obtained, the Green’s electoral success in the election will fail to pass the threshold for the Party’s automatic entry onto the ballot for forthcoming elections.

This impetuous disposition on the part of the Greens - whereby they shoot for the stars; a strategy reflecting their considerable lack of sociopolitical farsightedness - has engendered a condition were possible Green candidates who possess some notoriety are either courted by High Standing Party Members, or, contrarily, the Greens acquiesce to the prominent newcomer’s desire for the spot on the Green Party ticket.

As we observe the latest inner-organizational events occurring within the Green Party, as the Nation moves closer to a new Presidential Election, it appears that the impending quasi-celebrity to be embraced by the Greens will be no other than the former Georgia Representative, Cynthia McKinney. The only difference, however, between McKinney and other quasi-celebs who have used the Green Party in order to advance their own political aspirations is the fact that McKinney’s public persona - albeit recognized widely - is, more often than not, associated with feelings of contempt and annoyance.

McKinney’s public conduct has been one characterized by somewhat of a paradox. On the one hand, she advocates important issues about social problems that impact the most vulnerable members of American Society. In fact, she is one of the few politicians to publicly admit that the crisis in the Middle-East is primarily attributable to the Israelis and their violations of international law as the Israeli colonists strive to usurp more and more territory from the subjugated Palestinians.

Nevertheless, whatever goodwill might be garnered from McKinney’s tenacity for speaking forthright is obfuscated by her supreme arrogance and elitism. She is, of course, the Representative who assaulted a police officer, who had stopped her because she stormed through a corridor when entering the Capital Building that was reserved for members of Congress. McKinney’s reaction was to strike the police officer, as if he was out of line and he had no business even approaching her.

What is important to remember about this event is that McKinney was not wearing her Congressional Pin - which would have identified her as a Member of Congress - therefore, for her to suspect not to be stopped seems to rest upon an inflated ego that instructs her to presume she is pervasively known and recognizable to everyone, and therefore should not be subject to the same inconveniences as the rest of us, even if she neglects to have the alacrity of mind to wear appropriate identification.

This rather minor incident, however, could have been quickly resolved if McKinney simply apologized and explained her actions as being kneejerk and quite clearly inappropriate. Nevertheless, McKinney’s hyperbolic ego got in the way, and she elected to cry bigotry, going so far as to accuse the Officer, whom she had struck, as being motivated out of racism when stopping this Congresswoman who had decided not to wear the lapel required for her to be recognized as a Member of Congress. In other words, McKinney - overestimating her self-importance - was willing to ruthlessly attack the civil servant, who, in this context, was the actually vulnerable, underpowered party in the dispute; not the other way around, as McKinney suggested.

So, considering all of this, why does the Green Party - or, at least, quite a few of its notable members and supporters - seem to embrace McKinney and her decision to run for the Green Party’s ticket for the Presidency? I suspect the answer to this question rests in the fact that she has acquired national recognition, and among the leftist extremes in American political culture she is still looked upon with credibility and respect. Nevertheless, from my own vantage point, I am prepared to denounce McKinney as just another self-absorbed false prophet, who is less concerned with the incremental growth of the Green Party as she is obsessed with herself and her own ascendency to higher offices.

Russell Cole

Tags: congress, cynthia mckinney, government, green party lack of democracy, politics, third parties
Categories: Commentary, Politics, Third Parties, Congress
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An Article by:

Ben Tanosborn

It must have been Harry S. Truman, the plainest amongst our plain presidents, who scared us all into having idiots running our government by saying: “Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.”  Of course, he failed to acknowledge the possibility that we could have the worst of both worlds: inefficient government and dictatorship.  And at this moment, we seem to be marching in step to get there soon. 

Are our nation’s best and brightest so repulsed by the bureaucracy in the public sector that decidedly prefer to take up arms running the predatory wing of the private sector?

Maybe some of the “brightest” are doing that, but they cannot also be called “best” while allowing themselves to be corrupted by a heartless capitalism equally ready to reward its bright leaders as it is to deny countless people from sharing the economic trough. 

It does look more and more as if both public and private sectors are being ran by the very same gang of thieves, all operating from a single “carnivalesque” den, where the larcenous elite pick the lazy, career-politicians as their lead carneys for deceit.

And these lead carneys are seldom the brightest, and definitely never the best! 

Americans have done it in the past… so why not again?  I mean… elect the village idiot to be mayor… well, president and CINC for this US-village we live in.  No disrespect intended, not for the sake of disrespect; certainly not by simply calling a dumb ass who aspires to be America’s supreme leader by a first, middle and last name, all in one.  And every village, we are told, is expected, certainly entitled, to have one.  An idiot, that is!

One would think that hitting on nine out of ten prognostications would make most of us who are humility-challenged, a bit giddy zigzagging in haughty satisfaction; almost as if invited to a seminar conducted, ex officio, by none other than Nostradamus – in spirit, of course.  But to me, this nine out of ten “good guesses” that I’ve attained during this past year lose any and all merit when the error, the incredible miss, involves the man of the hour, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the soon-to-be standard bearer for the GOP in the coming presidential election.  And that’s how I messed up, big time, when last May in one of my columns I prematurely called this politician a has-been, and laid to rest his presidential ambitions with an obituary that read R.I.W. (Rest in War) instead of R.I.P. 

Foolish me!  Of all the predictions I’ve made throughout the years, this one I thought to be a cinch, a sure thing… an “almost-certainty” with an infinitesimal margin of error.  I was almost embarrassed to even consider it a prediction instead of a factoid.  Pleassse! How can the Grand Old Party consent to be represented by anyone like John McCain… a person irrelevant in just about every aspect of the party’s conservative tradition; a true morbid warmonger just like the present occupant of the White House; a phony funny-racist; an inarticulate man… one lacking minimal brain power?  How, may I ask?

Could it be that Americans prefer not to have anyone smarter than their surrounding mediocrity leading them?  Or that after having been submerged at the bottom of iniquity with George W. Bush for eight years, we might fee the need for a decompression stop presidency before our nation resurfaces without suffering from the bends? Nonsense… a McCain presidency would be no different from a Bush’s third term… equal opportunity idiocy, and more thieveries of the filthy, or cleanly, rich.

One cannot fathom McCain as the next president of the United States… the new scorn of the gooks and their new replacements, the terrorist Islamo-fascists! Not this burnt scrap from the bottom of Annapolis’ kettle.  But then again, Americans more often than not seem to side with the perceived underdog, particularly when seen as a hero-patriot, and it would be hard to find a greater underdog than the village idiot.

Don’t count McCain out… at least for now!  It’s an indisputable fact that in America, money is total power, and at the end of the day power always grabs the reins.

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, congress, corporations, corporatism, democracy, economics, government, homeland security, imperialism, politics, power, social responsibility
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, Power, Politics, Congress, Corporations, Homeland Security, Imperialism, social responsibility, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article by:

Steve Hammons

also published in AmericanChronicle.com

Results from Diebold electronic voting machines used in New Hampshire’s primary are being questioned this week as apparent anomalies in voting patterns there are examined.

According to published reports, in areas of New Hampshire where Diebold machines were used, Hillary Clinton may have received significantly more votes than Barack Obama, compared to regions where Diebold machines were not used.

Despite repeated reports by experts that these types of voting machines can be hacked and voting results altered, the devices continue to be used around the country.

Questions were raised in 2004 presidential election about the accuracy of voting results in Ohio.

Some of these concerns were also related to Diebold electronic voting machines.

After the 2000 presidential election and problems counting Florida’s punch-card ballots, federal funds were made available for local jurisdictions to purchase different voting technologies.

Many of these funds were spent on electronic machines such as the Diebold devices.

DEMOCRACY AT RISK

Vote tampering in the U.S. and elsewhere is nothing new. But, reasonable efforts have often been implemented to attempt to minimize some of the more egregious activities regarding election fraud.

Now, with questionable electronic voting devices used throughout the nation, high-tech election manipulation is clearly a possibility, probability or maybe even established fact, according to some researchers and experts who have investigated the situation.

Because election and voting procedures vary around the country, there are not uniform and consistent standards for voting devices and other elements of election processes.

Although many people have called for increased universal standards to assist in maintaining the integrity of elections, little has been done.

In addition to questionable voting machines, other irregularities have been documented, reported and investigated. These include confusing ballots, inadequate numbers of polling places, polling places strategically located to influence voting patterns, removal of qualified citizens from voting eligibility lists and other concerns.

According to some observers, these kinds of circumstances may have significantly affected national and local elections in recent years.

CORRECTIVE ACTION

What can be done to improve the integrity and accuracy of our election processes? Experts and researchers of all kinds have made many valuable suggestions, based on extensive investigations of many aspects of current election problems.

Yet, there does not seem to be an adequate consensus about what steps should be taken.

Do we implement mandatory national standards or keep elections in local hands? And, how will decisions be made about things like electronic voting technology. Unwise and corrupt decisions can just as easily be made at the federal level as at the local level, as we know all too well.

Politically neutral organizations could create groups of experts to make logical recommendations about how to proceed. In fact, many such groups already have. But the problems persist.

In the case of Ohio’s 2004 elections, other similar questionable election processes and now in the New Hampshire primary, real or perceived irregularities are damaging American democracy.

If it is true that flawed voting machine technology is inadvertently making errors or allowing outright criminal voter fraud, we have a serious problem.

If other aspects of our election processes, inadvertently or intentionally, are also wrongly disenfranchising citizens, creating phony election results and helping put people in office who were not truly elected, our democratic system is truly damaged.

Tags: congress, constitution, corporations, democracy, economics, Elections, fascism, federal government, government, information technology, politics, privatization, self governance
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Democracy, constitution, government, self-governance, Politics, Congress, Corporations
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Being reflective; personally taking stock of a situation, or issue, seems to be antonymic to the nature of most people who prefer that matters be handled by leaders of groups they belong to.  Whether the issue is government, war, crime, drug-addiction, or most anything else, they are quick to pass the buck, determining that it really isn’t up to them to take stock… with that 50’s mentality that “father knows best.”  And as a year comes to an end, instead of personally taking stock and weighing what is happening to their nation, Americans’ choice is to keep the mind relaxed and let the President tell them in January’s State of the Union speech “how things really are.”  Let the lies and b-s roll!

My background as a business counselor compels me to help close this 2007 calendar year with a socio-economic and political statement of “profit and loss;” its bottom line soon to be incorporated into a balance sheet that will give us a snapshot of what we, the stockholders of the Empire, hold as equity entering 2008.

Before we look at the revenue and expense components of America’s P&L, we should take a look at that bottom line, which to no one’s surprise appears as the blood-spilling continuation of embarrassing failures for the seventh straight year, courtesy of the most incompetent management team ever to run the Empire.  Our nation has been piling up losses during this time in such a spendthrift and indurate way to the point all retained success built into the balance sheet throughout the years has been now wiped out, and the losses are already eating away into our investment, our until now untouched legacy of democratic capital.  Bush has succeeded not only in mismanaging the nation’s affairs but he is recklessly leading us into un-chaptered political bankruptcy… sure to happen by the time a new same-old-face president is inaugurated in January 2009.

Few years as this 2007 have brought the United States so little in political and socio-economic revenue, either foreign or domestic.  In the domestic front there was little the government would provide via judicial determinations by the tilted-right Supreme Court (evidenced by the partial abortion and a half dozen other rulings); or needed legislation from Congress; or any constructive leadership by the White House and its appendage, the Pentagon.  Although both houses of Congress were controlled by the lesser-evil party, they could not muster the votes to overrule a veto-happy Bush, whether on issues of war or even providing healthcare for the nation’s children.  It would be difficult to come up with just one significant thing that could be construed as something of value for the nation as a whole coming from any of the three branches of government.

As far as revenue from foreign policy investments, which have been mostly made in the currency of war and threats to other nations, one could hardly expect positive returns.  There was a lower count of dead Americans in Iraq – the only ones we care to count – attributed to the military surge, and little else.  One cannot think of any dividends from foreign sources that could add economic, military, social, or political value to the P&L.  Even in the area of global warming, we antagonized the entire world, losing at year’s end the support of the other Kyoto non-signer, Australia.  A final tally of foreign and domestic accomplishments (revenues) yields nothing but a big fat zero.

Ah!  But if our successes were few or inexistent, our failures can be measured in grand scale, both internationally and domestically.  Our expenses reached levels we would expect from a teenager at the mall having a credit car with “no limit” stamped on all four corners.  Monetarily, our insatiable borrowing, not only from the savings of people in other countries but from our own future generations, reached a level not only difficult to understand mathematically, but impossible to accept morally.  And our dysfunctional, make-believe, consumption-driven economy has brought the nation to the edge of the precipice, with overvalued assets in both real estate and stock market to a figure now approaching the nation’s entire annual GDP of over US$13 trillion.

Little needs to be said about our overseas failures, not just in the Middle East, where we have erred miserably in an unjustified and chimeric pseudo-protection of Israel, but everywhere else as well.  After seven years of trying, Bush finally succeeded in making Russia once again a potential enemy of the US, instead of a friend and partner in seeking harmony for the world.  And the tally of potential enemies, and disappointed friends, grows as nations in both Africa and Latin America no longer see a mutuality of interests between the United States and themselves.

One could easily conclude that the US government is not only coldhearted towards the peoples of the world, but cares little about its own citizenry, its interest being solely in self-perpetuating its power, and the financial welfare of a select-few who control the lion’s share of wealth and power, in America and elsewhere where capitalism flourishes.

This exiting 2007 was for me one more session for Bush et al to chisel at the shrinking equity that Americans have in America; a year in which a mendacious government continued  whittling away on those unalienable rights of man, stated in our Constitution as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

For years we have observed how social and political events have taken place in this nation clearly pushing it towards the path of fascism, American fascism; real fascism, but rooted in this United States; a fascism different from Hitler’s, or Mussolini’s or even Franco’s, but fascism nonetheless. These days, our own NS-Frauenschaft provides the nation with fascist whores who trot with impunity up and down Main Street, anywhere in this land of ours, dressed in vibrant, patriotic red-white-and-blue colors; dollar-stars in their eyes; silver crosses as pendants; and, yes, unabashedly toting bibles.  Our Lady Liberty has now been replaced by replicas of a fascist libertine; a libertine venerated as the immaculate virgin-mother of corporate, military and evangelical America.

Yet, with such clarity provided by this year’s socio-economic and political statement, Americans remain undeterred, meekly consenting to everything the government puts on their plates, eating their soylent green as if it were the greatest gourmet delicacy.

© 2007 Ben Tanosborn

www.tanosborn.com

Tags: congress, democracy, economics, empire, Global, government, history, imperialism
Categories: Commentary, Global, Economics, government, Congress, Empire, History, Imperialism
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An Article by:

Loren Bliss

Even inside the Second Amendment community, too many U.S. voters remain oblivious to the fact the Democrats and the Republicans are now openly collaborating to forcibly disarm as many Americans as possible — especially U.S. military veterans — with an oppressive package of bipartisan Congressional legislation already enacted or pending.

More troubling still is the fact so many of our traditional guardians of other constitutional rights — groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and its political kindred — are too blinded by their hatred of firearms owners and firearms to see how this newly emerging onslaught portends a final betrayal of American liberty by the very people sworn to protect it.

By far the most egregious of these legislative measures is S1237, a bill I warned about last spring. Requested by President Bush, S1237 would allow the federal government — by secret decree and without any pretense of due process — to permanently deny firearms ownership to anyone it deems politically suspect. It is pending in the judiciary committee, where it has acquired a dozen co-sponsors, among them Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer and Edward Kennedy — proof the Democrats remain as committed to forcible disarmament as ever. A companion, HR2074, is in the House Judiciary Committee and is also quickly acquiring sponsors from both parties, thereby proving the Republican pledge to protect Second Amendment rights is merely another of the GOP’s treacherous lies.

Equally dangerous are HR2640 and S2084, new versions of a measure previously titled HR297, the other bill I warned against in May. Growing ranks of critics say either form, HR2640 or S2084, would clear the way for mandatory disarmament of anyone ever diagnosed as having any degree of mental illness, even the most relatively benign. As S2084, the measure has been expanded into unrelated realms and is awaiting final action by the Senate, where its Republican and Democratic sponsors hope to force its passage “as agreed” — a voice vote in which individual positions are not recorded — just as HR2640 was approved by the House.

This mode of enactment is indicative and damning: a common means for dispensing with parliamentary trivia, it is unprecedented for the approval of significant or controversial legislation — as if Congress were to abolish Medicare by a chorus of ayes and nays. The method of HR2640’s passage thus achieves toxic distinction as an all-time nadir of unethical arrogance. It also confirms a fear and contempt for the electorate never before so publicly displayed in U.S. politics: the haughty disdain by which the nation’s politicians have long viewed those of us who elect them — the resurrected aristocratic prejudice we common folk are too ignorant to be allowed any genuine liberty — a worsening malaise that has been carefully documented for at least a decade.(1) More ominously, the craven concealment of the vote on HR2640 proves beyond a scintilla of doubt the dread accuracy of the darkest estimates of the measure’s tyrannical purpose. There is no other reason so many senators are trying so desperately to mimic the representatives in cowering behind procedural sleight-of-hand.

HR327 — the unanimously enacted “Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Law” recently signed by President Bush — is one of the hammers to the anvil of H2640/S2084. The latter bills would provide the mechanism of forcible disarmament as noted above, while HR327 makes evaluation of one’s mental state a prerequisite for obtaining any medical care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This, from HR327’s Section 1720F, paragraph (c), says it all: “the Secretary shall direct that medical staff offer mental health in their overall health assessment when veterans seek medical care at a Department medical facility…and make referrals, at the request of the veteran concerned, to appropriate counseling and treatment programs for veterans who show signs or symptoms of mental health problems.”

Under HR2640/S2084, anyone — veteran or otherwise — whose psychological condition suggests even the faintest risk of self-harm would be permanently denied the right to keep and bear arms. Thus a person seeking self-improvement via counseling could be disarmed as easily as someone afflicted by major mental illness. Since anyone so disarmed is also implicitly deprived all right of self-protection, such a person is literally reduced to statutory prey — a legally defenseless creature any predator can attack at will and with absolute impunity. The possibility an attacker might face subsequent penalties is no deterrent at all, a fact repeatedly confirmed by interviews with street criminals. And whatever consequences eventually obtain, they are in any case invariably diminished once disclosure of psychological status renders the victim subhuman in the eyes of police, judicial authorities and a population internationally notorious for its hateful intolerance of even the slightest mental abnormality.

But one exceptionally bold senator, Tom Coburn (R-OK), saw these dangers from the very beginning and dared put a continuing hold on HR2640/S2084. He also raised the sole objection to HR327, which he recognized as an enabling act for HR2640/S2084.

“The VA’s past failures to protect the privacy of veterans records show that this concern is well-founded,” said Coburn. “The Department of Veterans Affairs, in 1999, shared the private medical records of more than 80,000 veterans with the Department of Justice…to prohibit the purchasing of firearms by veterans who had been diagnosed as having mental health concerns at one point in their lives.”(2)

Coburn’s defense of the right to keep and bear arms predictably made him the target of a nationally orchestrated smear campaign, a vicious attack that included a New York Times editorial denouncing him as “locked, loaded and looney,”(3) and he eventually retreated from his HR327 position, apparently convinced the phrase “at the request of the veteran concerned” makes psychological assessment under HR327 purely voluntary. But anyone familiar with the military and the VA instantly recognizes the Big Lie: the fact “at the request of” is meaningless. In the VA as in the military, one has no choice but to follow the inevitable orders — “you WILL see the shrink” — even if the result is the loss of one’s firearm rights forever.

Moreover, every military veteran in the U.S. — combat vet or not — could be permanently disarmed by this new law. This is because, by the definition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV or DSM-IV, even basic military training might arguably result in some degree of PTSD, while for actual combat veterans, PTSD is an absolute certainty.(4) And since “suicidal tendencies” are implicit in PTSD,(5) this diagnosis automatically invokes the forcible disarmament provisions of HR2640/S2084 — in the words of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), “any danger, not simply ‘imminent’ or ‘substantial’ danger” — the individual in question might attempt self-harm.(6)

Obviously HR2640/S2084 would also facilitate the forcible and permanent disarmament of many civilians — for example anyone who suffered PTSD as the result of criminal attack, natural disaster, civil disorder, even a serious illness, a residential fire or an injurious traffic accident.

However, to understand the true magnitude of the HR2640/S2084/HR327 forcible-disarmament package, it is necessary to factor in two more findings: the World Health Organization conclusion — already axiomatic among U.S. mental health professionals –that all mental disorders increase the risk of suicide;(7) and the National Institute of Mental Health estimate that at one time or another, nearly 50 percent of the U.S. population will suffer from some form of mental disorder — whether minor or major, temporary or protracted.(8 ) HR2640/S2084 would enable the government to proclaim all these individuals prohibited persons and forcibly disarm any who own firearms.

The equally bipartisan S1237 meanwhile disarms political activists and even apolitical nonconformists. Ostensibly it would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists.” Authored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in response to a presidential request — Lautenberg is probably the most fanatical forcible-disarmament advocate in Congress — its core feature is nullification of the constitutionally implied principle of presumed innocence.

But the stunningly oppressive intent of the Bush/Lautenberg proposal is found not in the legislation itself but in the federal government’s post-9/11 redefinitions of the term “terrorism.” Critics on both left and right say the definitions are now so broad they potentially criminalize any form of effective political action. In other words, participants in a legitimate labor strike or a picket-line that blocks or merely slows vehicles in a city street could thus be disarmed — permanently and without judicial redress — as “terrorists.” So could people collecting signatures on unapproved petitions or giving unauthorized musical or theatrical performances that delay pedestrian traffic on sidewalks.(9, 10, 11)

No matter the heartfelt appeal such draconian disarmament measures have for the opponents of civilian firearms ownership, the fact remains neither these laws and proposals nor their underlying nullifications of other aspects of the Bill of Rights have any real precedents in U.S. history. Given that the Republicans have until now disguised themselves as valiant defenders of the right to keep and bear arms, the bipartisan nature of the forcible disarmament effort is also an entirely new phenomenon, and its potential for making criminals of law-abiding citizens — not to mention its likelihood for turning the U.S. into Cell Block Nation — would appear to exceed even that of the Volstead Act and national prohibition. The only historical parallel may lie in the most terrifying aspect of the 1942 confinement of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps — the fact that (in upholding the detentions), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the entire Bill of Rights is meaningless — that its guarantees can be abolished whenever there is “pressing public necessity.”

Equally alarming is the unheard-of manner in which both parties have joined hands in singular deviousness — the despotic determination reflected by a Machiavellian scheme obviously designed to succeed no matter the degree of public opposition — a development virulent with disturbing suggestions about our political future.

Like it or not, the only terms and concepts that explain this extraordinary stealth campaign and its unique degree of coordination are phrases many of us have been conditioned to reject instinctively: “ruling class,” “working class” and “class struggle.” Hence a plea for open-mindedness followed by a little bit of the history that justifies the use of these terms in this context:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal (1932-1945) was probably the most brilliant socioeconomic and political compromise in human history. It embraced the precept of class struggle — the notion that the chief motivating force of history is eternal war between the reflexively greedy, instinctively oppressive ruling class and all the rest of us — the oppressed, alienated, often legitimately rebellious working class. But instead of using class struggle to justify revolution, as Marxism did, the New Deal wed it to the principles of the U.S. Constitution and constitutional governance. The government would simultaneously encourage capitalist enterprise even as it protected us — the workers — against capitalist savagery. As a result, the vast majority of U.S. workers enjoyed nearly four decades of genuine prosperity — almost certainly the longest such era anywhere on Planet Earth in the past 3400 years.

But all that ended with the 1968 election, after which every U.S. president — Democrat or Republican — worked to destroy the protections the New Deal had granted us. Thus most U.S. workers have not received a genuine raise — an increase in disposable income — since 1973. With the willing collaboration of the Democrats — particularly the presidents Carter and Clinton — the Republicans have restored the ruling class to its former economic omnipotence, have resurrected most of its political autocracy and have destroyed or crippled all remaining vestiges of the laws and programs that formerly protected us from much of the misery inflicted by capitalist greed. And in the name of “free trade,” both parties are methodically subjugating all of us — that is, the working class — into ever-more-degraded servitude to the Global Sweatshop Economy. The Republican Party — demonstrably the core vessel of U.S. fascism even after Pearl Harbor dissolved the 1930s alliance between Big Business and Adolf Hitler’s Axis — has now nearly won its 75-year war against American workers.

Nevertheless some of us have begun to fight back. Union membership is again increasing, and with it, union militancy. We are beginning to re-learn what President Roosevelt and his supporters knew by heart — that capitalism is inherently malignant. Protest movements are growing. With skyrocketing fuel prices — authoritative predictions of $4 and even $5 per gallon before next spring — gas-pump rage at the ongoing collaboration of politicians and oil speculators could explode into disorders comparable to the bread-riots of pre-revolutionary France and 1917 Russia. Total economic collapse — the crash of the dollar to absolute worthlessness and runaway inflation of a sort not experienced in this country since the final years of the Confederacy — now appears at least possible. And terminal climate change worsens by the day if not the hour. Public anger simmers relentlessly toward some unknown boiling point even as potential chaos — truly unimaginable chaos — looms ever closer.

No wonder the ruling class now seeks to forcibly disarm as many U.S. workers as it can.

Yet one of the bloodier lessons of history is that in such desperate times the armed citizen is often the only remaining defense, whether of individual liberty or the collective ethos we call civilization.

Thus it cannot be said too often that the authority implicit in HR2640/S2084, HR327 and S1237 could enable the government to confiscate the guns of every working-class person in the United States — that is, every one of us who is not part of the tiny plutocracy that already controls 90 percent of the planet’s wealth and seeks to perpetuate itself in fortified, despotic opulence through the nightmare decades ahead. Combined, these measures are nearly universal in their reach: they could disarm not just veterans (whom the ruling class deems especially dangerous because of their military training and combat experience), but literally anyone who has suffered or illness or trauma. Simultaneously S1237 could disarm not only political activists but anyone whose opinions or lifestyle invites denunciation by the legions of petty officials, home-entry workers and snoopy or vindictive neighbors the Bush Regime has enrolled as its spies.(12)

However, the implications of this legislative blitz go far beyond the question of firearms ownership. HR1955, the so-called “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” has been passed 404-6 by the House and is pending in the Senate, where it has been renamed S1959. Supporters say the bill is essential for national defense, but — once again (and ever more predictably) — the definitions of “violent radicalization” and “terrorism” are so vague they effectively cancel the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments. Literally, under HR1955/S1959, a member of a militant labor union could be imprisoned merely for paying dues.(13, 14) And when HR1955/S1959 is viewed in concert with HR2640/S2084, HR327 and S1237, what emerges is undeniable proof of underlying bipartisan malevolence — not just an unprecedented effort to eliminate individual liberty by weasel-wording past the Bill of Rights, but to impose on the nation a climate of fear that has no counterpart in U.S. history: the ultimate ruling-class tactic to guarantee the abject submissiveness of the entire population. Any nation that disarms its firearms owners by sidestepping or suspending due process can just as easily silence its critics by the same methods — clearly the intent of HR1955/S1959.(15)

Meanwhile — if we dare to let ourselves acknowledge the evidence — the grand strategy of the ruling class also comes into sharp focus. Now we see how forcible disarmament through HR2640/S2084, HR327 and S1237 is essential to clear the way for the final destruction of American liberty via HR1955/S1959. Hence the deceitful histrionics of the 2008 presidential campaign: the ruling class feigning anger at Bush and the Republicans for doing precisely as they were ordered to do. Hence too the deliberately deceptive turnabout in which the ruling class lends the unstoppable power of its near-infinite wealth to the Democrats — who are thereby guaranteed control of the federal government (and most local governments as well) for the next four years. The remaining scenario is obvious: the Democrats fulfill their appointed purpose not just by zealously disarming the population but by ruthlessly suppressing dissent. The electorate then reacts as it did to the Clintons’ forcible disarmament campaigns of the 1990s and again votes the Democrats out of public office — this time probably forever. As the Republicans celebrate their restoration, the Democrats retire behind a smokescreen of theatrical bitterness, knowing all the while that because they spoke their lines so well, they will spend the remainder of their lives reaping the lavish rewards of private sinecure — repayment for eliminating the Constitution’s last remaining fail-safe clauses.

But now for us workers there is a very different scenario, one as grim as famine in Cambodia. Disarmed, we cannot even protect ourselves against the thugs and gangsters who increasingly prey on us; the Democrats have left us as utterly defenseless as Blacks shackled aboard an antebellum slave ship. And now in 2012 the Republican victors at last achieve the ultimate triumph they have sought since 1932 — the ruling class returned to absolute power over all government at all levels. With their world so secured, the capitalists jubilantly unleash the full tyrannosauric savagery of their greed, binding us in eternal servitude by every horror their technologies of oppression can produce. They have no need for more elections. Every city is post-Katrina New Orleans; every forest a desolation of clear-cuts and banditry; every job — the few that exist — a drudgery of fear and hopelessness.

Perhaps Old Glory yet waves, and perhaps the nation still labels itself the United States of America. Or perhaps the victorious plutocrats at last publicly acknowledge how the present circumstances grew out of a long succession of treasonous alliances that first united Republicans with Big Business; then united Republicans and Big Business with the ideologies of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco; and finally united Republicans and Big Business with Democrats so that all these diverse elements truly became one — “e pluribus unum”: one Homeland, one Nation, one Decider. Perhaps some even hail their New Order as the Fourth Reich. Whatever; liberty is dead forever. Perhaps also — though by now it is far too late — a few of us finally recognize that Karl Marx spoke prophetic truth when he told us long ago we had nothing to lose but our chains.

Loren Bliss

___________________________
References

1. WASHINGTON LEADERS WARY OF PUBLIC OPINION - The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
2. Combat veterans need medical care; not forced mental health screenings - U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D.
3. Harkin: Sen. Coburn’s Hold on Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Bill ‘Bogus’
   by: T.M. Lindsey for the Iowa Independent
4. DSM-IV & DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic criteria for 309.81 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - behavenet
5. PTSD and Suicide - William Hudenko, Ph.D. - Department of Veteran Affairs website
6. OPEN LETTER TO THE STATES’ ATTORNEYS GENERAL - Michael J. Sullivan, director Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (Scroll down to “Committed to a Mental Institution,” third paragraph.)
7. Making the Connection: Mental Illness and Suicide - The Centre for Suicide Prevention; The Canadian Mental Health Association (PDF file)
8. Half of Americans will suffer mental disorders, study says - Newstarget
9. Documents Obtained by ACLU Expose FBI and Police Targeting of Political Groups - ACLU website
10. PATRIOT ACT II – COMPLETING THE ARCHITECTURE FOR A POLICE STATE? - San Francisco Labor Council (PDF file)
11. The Star Chamber is Back - by Paul Craig Roberts
12. TIPS Domestic Spy Network May Go Too Far for White America - by Francis Beal
13. ‘Thought Crimes,’ HR 1955 Passed With 404 Votes - by Jeff Knaebel
14. H.R. 1955 - (commentary) at the Women of Color blog
15. Don’t Blame Liberals for Gun Control by: Richard Poe

Tags: bill of rights, congress, constitution, homeland security, liberty, politics
Categories: Commentary, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, Politics, Congress, Homeland Security
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The need for direct democracy in America has never been more apparent than it is right now. We - the populace - are left impotent as the politicians whom we elected to office as representatives neglect to embody in their advocacies the will and interests that we - the American Public - possess, whose demands for a withdrawal from Iraq; whose oppositions to the advancing diminution of civil liberties; whose sentiments concerning illegal immigration; are all falling upon the unreceptive ears of the Congress and the White House.

It has become clear following the Democratic procurement of power in the two Congressional bodies that the people of America do not have a voice in the affairs of their government. Despite the lofty declarations of intent enunciated by the Democratic leadership during the campaigns leading to the expulsion of Republicans from Congress, the Democrats have delivered nothing.

For example, the marginal increase in the minimum wage successfully installed by the Democrats is absolutely meaningless, since most States have already passed legislation rasing their own minimum wages to levels that exceed the hike enacted by the Democrats in the House and in the Senate. Furthermore, the additional sum specified in the legislation fails to amount to anything approximating a living wage. Therefore, what is the point? since those unfortunate enough to be working for minimum wage will continue to need assistance from government services, and - despite the hours and frenetic intensities at which they toil at their occupations - they will fail to accumulate the resources necessary to reinvest in themselves - through education or entrepreneurial ventures - so that they might ascend to a higher stratum within the American socio-economic stratifications.

Another instance of Democratic ineptitude involved the abundance of time that was wasted in the legislator-deal-making charade of representative democracy, which only resulted in a stunning failure to pass immigration reform. This demonstration of astoundingly acute incompetences on the parts of the Democratic and Republican leadership in the Senate will always have a place in the recesses of my memory due to the gaspingly condescending and equally idiotic speech given by Harry Reid, where he quoted Dr. Sues at length in an ill conceived rhetorical ploy to make his enormously convoluted, internally contradicting, and substantively hollow piece of legislation appear to be a pending bill that even a child could recognize as meritorious legislation in need of passing by Congress.

Reid’s lengthy quotation from a children’s book even outdid his previous remarks in support of legalizing illegal immigration, where he alluded to the need of casinos in his own State of Nevada not to lose their workforce of Latino maids. Although I certainly have sympathy for the Latino migrants who are exploited by the Las Vegas gambling industry, I cannot imagine a sector in the United States economy for which I could possibly possess less concern.

It is a wonder how this self-righteous idiot - the Senate Majority Leader - not only obtained his seat in the Senate, but came to control the Democratic caucus in this esteemed deliberative body.

To push on beyond Reid, we can cite the Democratic concessions to the White House with respect to the funding of the Iraq War. In defiance of the campaign promises that propelled the Democrats into power in the Congress, the Democrats in the House and Senate have given the Bush Administration exactly what it has insisted upon in form of the supplemental funding bills needed to persist in the financing of this black hole that has formed in what was previously the sovereign state of Iraq.

And finally, to top things off, the Democrats have passed a bill that was advertised as the modernization of FISA, which, in actuality, had nothing to do with revamping FISA in order for it to adequately address new technologies; rather, the legislation merely dismantled and discarded with significant aspects of the oversight that was previously performed by FISA. In short, going over and beyond even what was requested by the Imperial Presidency, the Democrats gave powers to the Executive Branch to monitor the activities of citizens without any oversight or check by the Judicial Branch of Government.

It has become clear that the Democratic Party presents no alternative venue of political representation for those of us who had, heretofore, perceived the Republican Party as the real threat to American civil liberties and economic prosperity. I think, at this point, we should feel compelled to accept what has become ostensible: America is not a democracy in any sense of the word. Remember, the Soviet Empire had elections, as well. However, similarly to the condition of American politics, the mere casting of a vote in an election had little or no consequence because, ultimately, government and its administration of public policies would be entirely the same no matter who came to be elected in the various branches of polity.

Russell Cole

Tags: bush, congress, democracy, Democrats, direct democracy, economics, government, labor, political parties, politics, Russell Coles Blog
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Democracy, government, Russell Cole's Blog, Politics, Congress, Labor, Direct Democracy
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Tags: congress, politicians, politics, populist
Categories: Commentary, Politics, Congress
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