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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An Article by:
Russell Cole

Mukasey – the United States Attorney General – stated on March 28th that pirating of digital copy righted materials was funding terrorism. The statement by the Attorney General was made after he met privately with executives from the entertainment industry as well as software vendors, such as Adobe.

I do not have much to say about this announcement other than the fact that it appears to be another fabrication that has been injected into the Discourse of Terror: a type of speech that serves as a justificatory device lending support to public initiatives that might otherwise appear undesirable if not absurd. This rhetoric that has been developed by the Bush Administration consists of a linguistic operation in which a policy position – that if viewed independently, might be unpopular - declares the policy to be a subsidiary of the larger War on Terror, even if the connections establishing such a relationship are lacking in evidential support; after all, there is always a black box, States Secrets, to reference if an Administration representative is pressed for empirical substantiation for an alleged scenario in which terror and its prosecution are invoked.

We can observe this same speech pattern in the latest canard; this time attempting to offer credence for increased resources being devoted by the Department of Justice for the investigation of individuals and syndicates engaging in IP, (intellectual property crimes). Under normal speech conditions – since we are, after all, presently fighting a war against terror – such a proposition might be difficult to sell to the public. IP - although not victimless – is certainly not violent, and IP surely does not qualify as publicly harmful. It is damaging to major software vendors and movie industry moguls, not the ordinary public. Therefore, the initiative by the Justice Department against IP might appear, if not cloaked in the prototypical terror-inciting garb, as an allocation of resources that is directed to protect the interests of the few, and the wealthy, and it might seem as though it is a distraction from more pressing matters, such as the actual War on Terrorism.

Therefore, how better alter the public’s opinion of such a policy announcement than to reconstitute its semiology, so that the increased expenditures against IP are subsequently understood as an extension of the War on Terror.

Tags: economics, foreign policy, government, homeland security, justice department, political rhetoric, politics, Terrorism, War on Terror
Categories: Commentary, Economics, government, Politics, Homeland Security, Terrorism, Foreign Policy, War on Terror
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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:

Ben Tanosborn

I no longer care how popular the voting concert is, I refuse to pay homage to those untalented, tone deaf rockers!  Every four years we are regaled with the very same quadrennial political tour, the same Evil Brothers, whatever names they may go by this time around, giving us the misconception that there is political choice in our lives.

Sorry, folks, but I have had it with those two brothers engendered by an incestuous relationship. Greater and Lesser, as far as this writer is concerned, although not twins, carry almost identical DNA’s.  And it is precisely our covering up for all of Lesser’s misgivings, election after election, that we are where we are – politically – today.  After the snow dust settled in Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire came undone, I finally made an irrevocable resolution, not just for the New Year but one to honor for a lifetime: Never again!  Never again will I be shamed into voting for that lesser evil candidate – or party; for evil, of any kind, does not deserve anyone’s vote, certainly not mine.

While America’s Fuehrer tours the palaces of his moneyed-buddies in the Middle East, ranting incessantly – and stupidly – about Iran… and the inconceivable and “personal” promise of regional peace, the present Democratic pretenders to the Pennsylvania Avenue domicile, who also anticipate dominance over a Reichstag just a short jog away, deliver soft blows at each other as if all these non-sense, non-issues really meant anything.  Anything relevant, that is, to the chaotic economic and foreign policies that define the sorry state of our nation these days!  And these babbling pretenders under the banner of change are throwing barbs at one another without the slightest clue as to what “change” should be.  Obama and Clinton, a total disgrace, yet it’s likely that one or the other, maybe even both, will adorn the Democratic ticket for this naught-eight.  Ugh!  Lesser evil, anyone… to whatever these Republicans will try to concoct in their wrongly rightist ways?

As in the past, it is America’s media “aiding” in the decision as to what politicians make the acceptability cut, and for Democrats, whatever the reasons, people like Biden, Dodd and Richardson never had a chance.  And the Press made sure that Kucinich’s peace message was kept as short as his physical stature.  So from the very start it was just a beauty contest with three semi-finalists: Clinton, Edwards and Obama.  And now, to make it more interesting – in the tradition of American Idol – it’s beginning to look as if the media judges have decided that Edwards is beginning to look too angry, maybe too controversial for our “centrist” politics.  So it’s down to Obama and Clinton, Clinton and Obama… the man who can deliver a spirited message from the pulpit, just like an emotive evangelical preacher, but who to date has not shown us any “beef”; and that warrior, bionic woman who could have the White House renamed the Clinton House if she were to add two terms to her husband’s.  America’s centrists both… from the center of America’s corporate money!

And the only hope and compromise for American progressives that Edwards’ candidacy might represent appears to be gone.  Edwards is by no means what many of us would consider a true progressive candidate, but he seems trustworthy enough to help change the direction of America, domestically and internationally, and not just talk about it.  No sacrilegious talk (on peace) like that expressed by Hillary, after her victory in New Hampshire that would have us leave Iraq only under the proper conditions… definitely the language one would expect from a transvestite Dubya.

Of course, Iraq has ceased to be Americans’ main concern, and now the headlines are starting to tell us that voters are far, far more worried about the economy than any war; naturally, as long as it is waged elsewhere.  And the economic bloodbath soon to come in snowballing fashion, unstoppable by any so-called economic stimuli – which would entail additional borrowing from our already bankrupted future generations and nothing but a temporary postponement of the inevitable – will uncover a third stage of a cancer that has been with American society for too long: we consume, or waste in unnecessary weaponry, far more than we produce… and we elect government leadership that enable us to do so.

Only thing that the Democratic Party presumably had going all these years, as stupidly as it sounds if you believe it, was having a “big umbrella” for diversity.  Except that when it came to the moment of truth, those who advocated social justice, domestically, and peace in the world, were never represented in the party.  They had neither voice nor vote.  Yet, at election time, the Democratic Party apparatiks would always come to that 5 to 10 percent of progressive voters, asking us with a sardonic smile to vote for them… the Lesser Evil!  And most of us have succumbed to that totally flawed rationale.

Had progressives stood firm to their convictions during the past quarter of a century, and had organized as a true “umbrella party” to the many advocacies for a better and more just and peaceful society – even if small in numbers – this 2008 presidential election could have turned out to be one to really change America.  Instead, we’ll have an election where our citizenry is insulted once again… with more of the same.

If anyone approaches me prior to the November 4 election sermonizing why I need to vote once again for “Lesser Evil” my answer will be fulminatory and terminal, and I will say it without fear of remorse: Go f… yourself!

Tags: Ben Tanosborn, big brother, democracy, empire, fascism, foreign policy, Global, government, homeland security, imperialism
Categories: Commentary, Global, Democracy, Empire, Homeland Security, Foreign Policy, Imperialism, Ben Tanosborn
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An Article by:

Russell Cole

The purpose of this essay is to bring scrutiny to an alarming trend in American governance. This growing practice is propounded by differing groups in our society, ranging from the neoconservatives to the quasi-academicians occupying fellowships at the politically moderate Brookings Institute.

In a publication produced by members of the Brookings’ Institute, the emerging practice has been labeled with the following expression, “Governing by Network.” This philosophy of governance looks to institutions and organizations outside of government in order to outsource the work of government; thus, privatizing many of the functions that would, otherwise, be implemented by governmental agencies and the civil professionals who work under their auspices.

The purpose of this brief essay is to refocus this governing philosophy through the lens of an entirely different interpretative framework, in order to bring to the fore some of the alarming outcomes that might result from this practice of outsourcing government. I will make the case that governing by network is tantamount to corporatism, and, therefore, poses a threat to the already compromised democracy that we, as Americans, have historically struggled to enact and, presently, continue to enjoy; although in recent years our democratic system of polity has suffered a flurry of incursions made by the current Imperial Presidency.

At first glance, this might appear to be a sound policy. Looking toward corporations in the economy and NGOs in civil society might provide a means by which to rely upon organizations in society that are already specialized in particular types of operations, making them more efficient and effective agents for carrying out the missions underlying government initiatives. In the language of neoconservatism, privatizing the military, for instance, will make America’s war machinery subservient to the pressures of the market; subsequently, ensuring that America’s mechanisms for carrying out its foreign policies that rely upon militarism are the most fit for that purpose.

This whole arcade of mercenary contractors waging war in Iraq is by no means an ad hoc appendage to the military proper, whose idea and implementation were incited solely from the contingencies of the Iraqi campaign. Rather, the privatization of the military had been, from inception of the Bush Presidency, a guiding-principle for Rumsfield and his efforts to reform the American military complex. From the beginning of his tenure as the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfield had been working with his favored contacts in the private sector in order to facilitate the outsourcing of many of the functions of the military and the Pentagon; thus, increasing the role of private contractors in America’s military affairs. This protracted endeavor to outsource as many military operations as possible was part of a metaphorical war being waged against the military bureaucracy; a complex – according to Rumsfield, and in accord with neoconservative thought patterns – of obsolescent bureaucratic institutions, which burdened the American state with inefficiency, resulting in governmental waste.

There are, of course, manifold examples to cite when it comes to illuminating the concrete manifestations of the emergent doctrine, governing by network. To cite a more seemingly benign example, Bush’s policy of funding faith-based organizations for the purposes of providing social welfare services to the dependent and needy constitutes an instance of governing by network, because it involves integrating organizations that exist in civil society into the operations and functions of government; relieving the state from the encumbrance of constructing the institutional architecture required for it to perform these tasks on its own.

Although, prima facie, these uses of the private sector to facilitate the execution of public policies might appear innocuous and, even, pragmatic. Nevertheless, there is a more sinister dimension to these practices, which reflects a motivation possessed by the adherents of this public policy philosophy that needs to be rendered transparent, so that the full scope of consequences brought about by governing by network is apparent to the American citizen.

In the initial paragraph of this essay, I pointed out that the privatization of governance can alternatively be referenced under the term, corporatism. By this, I am indicating that the privatization of government will have the entailment of creating a political system in which the distinctions between polity and the economy are effectively blurred; resulting of the integration of the economy, along with the elites who control it, with the institutions and decision-making mechanisms of government. I say this because private entities in the economy can just as well affect the policy making processes belonging to the politic sphere of society - and will have a much greater incentive to do so if government is outsourced – through interventions such as their corporate lobbying and the campaign donations extended to politicos by corporate elites – as can the body politic impact upon the firms in the economy through the adoption of government policy.

Therefore, by privatizing governmental services, we run the risk of having corporations influencing what policies will be implemented by affecting political decision-making outcomes in an attempt to ensure revenue through governmental contracts. This networking of polity with the economy and civil society will precipitate working relationships among the agencies in all three of the affected social spheres:  polity, civil society, and economics.  Resultantly, the policies taken up by government might reflect the economic interests that stand to benefit from particular policies; rather than having government policy address the needs and desires of the populace; members of society who do not necessarily possess the wealth and influence to countervail the corporate interests that stand to profiteer through particular types of policy implementations. In short, the government and the economy will merge into a union whereby policy and the motivations that underly it will be identical with interests emanating from the economic sector and from the advocacies associated with NGOs in civil society; a collection of non-governmental agencies that stand to benefit by virtue of the contracts that will ensue from the networked administration of public policies.

There is an even more alarming aspect to the consequences engendered by governing by network: The constitutional protections that restrict governmental interference in the private and civic affairs of citizens can effectively be circumvented by implementing the policies of government through the employment of private institutions that are not beholden to the same limitations imposed upon government by the Constitution. This is what makes the discussion among neoconservatives so disconcerting, in which they are presently entertaining the prospect of outsourcing domestic intelligence gathering to private firms who will then be entrusted with spying upon American citizens.

This plan that is being advanced by the in-member ideologues of the current Administration in conjunction with their sympathizers and consultants occupying positions in various neoconservative think-tanks, if allowed to materialize, will result in more than the “soft fascism,” described by Ron Paul in his warnings about corporatism; it presents the possibility of effectively imposing a rather profound and extensive form of authoritarianism upon the American public. We will be subjected to the unfettered intrusions and spying eyes of private entities outside the constraining parameters that have been, heretofore, erected by Constitutional Rights. We will have to fear with whom we associate and with whom we transact communications – let alone indulgences in vice; or contributions to radicalized political advocacies – because we will have no expectation that we can maintain any seclusion of these activities in the sense that we will not be able to conceal information and curtail knowledge about our engagements, as private citizens, from institutions who might react punitively if presented with such renderings of our social activities. When in the hands of private firms conducting domestic intelligence gathering, what is to stop our employers from purchasing such information in order to assess our interactions outside of the workplace, so the firm can successfully impose a lifestyle – through the threat of occupational termination upon those who deviate – that they deem appropriate for those assuming positions in the ranks of their employment.

Consider, even, the current push to centralize and digitize our health records. Of course, they attempt to assuage our concerns by emphasizing the improvements to the administration of health care that will be actualized through the availability to health care professionals of an archive containing our complete medical histories that can be instantaneously retrieved via information technologies. However, what other possibilities will be enacted through the creation of such a repository of personalized information regarding matters of our biographies that we consider to be, oftentimes, sensitive and highly private? Might we be obliged by potential employers to permit their human resource agents to investigate for what we have received treatment by physicians and when that treatment was administered?  For some us, we risk even having to disclose out relationships with psychiatrists and other practitioners of mental health care. Additionally, through the nexus between the economy and polity that will be formed under the conditions depicted in the not so distant futurism that I am detailing, what recourse could we possibly have to prevent government agencies from obtaining the health records that will already be in the hands of corporations with whom government will have working relations? The rights to privacy that were referenced by the attorneys entrusted with the criminal defense of Rush Limbaugh will not be violated, they will simply be circumvented, bypassed, through the creation of cooperative enterprises involving both law enforcement and private entities in the economy or, perhaps, civil society, which might have access to personal medical records.

It is important to stress that the argument that I am making is not a polemic advancing a position in support of expanded government. However, I am quite explicitly warning against solutions to “Big Government,” that advance an agenda of privatizing government operations by outsourcing their functions to corporations and NGOs. The best remedy for inflated bureaucracy is the diminution of government and the services that it provides. The very worse trajectory in our social development would be pursuing the path followed by the ideologues in the Bush Administration, who are quite actively working to expand the powers of the Presidency; an expansion of authority that is leveled at the peril of civil liberties.

Tags: bill of rights, constitution, corporations, corporatism, democracy, economics, fascism, governing, government, homeland security, liberty, neoconservatism, politics, power, privatization, Russell Coles Blog, self governance
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Democracy, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, government, Russell Cole's Blog, self-governance, Power, Politics, Corporations, Homeland Security, neoconservatism
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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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by Russell Cole

What is more dangerous to passenger airplanes, human breastmilk or Dell laptop computers?

It is a good thing that the security measures safeguarding passengers of jet airplanes against threats that are conceived on an ad hoc basis, only after they are learned from the intending terrorists themselves, are finally being implemented.

It is only natural to suspect that terrorists will deploy the exact same techniques that have already been discovered by Homeland Security. Therefore, it is a good thing that our safties are in the hands of officials who are more than capable of ignoring potential threats that might be actualized by terrorists in the future in order to exhaust their energies upon developing measures to guard against terrorist techniques that have already been attempted.

An excellent exemplar of this philosophy of law enforcement is the current security measures being institutionalized at airports. Since terrorists have already attempted to use liquid explosives, we can infer that they are going to use the same technique in furture operations. This is why it is so important that liquids such as human breast milk are being guarded against.

I have never personally seen breast milk explode. Then again, I have had few encounters with breast milk of which I am aware. On the other, the explosion of Dell laptop computers is something that might occur in the present and future, and, therefore, should not consume the precious intellectual resources of those who are commissioned with assuring our security on planes. Consequently, we can thank those in charge of Homeland Security for preventing against plots that have already been foiled while ignoring potential threats, such as the explosion of a Dell Laptop computer during a flight.

Tags: airport security, big brother, bill of rights, empire, flying, homeland security, liberty, National, power, Russell Coles Blog, Terrorism, TSA
Categories: Commentary, National, liberty, bill of rights, Russell Cole's Blog, Power, Homeland Security, Terrorism
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An article by Joseph Murtagh, originally published in the Muckracker Report For the last six years, there’s been this assumption about George W. Bush that has occupied roughly the same place in people’s minds as the second law of thermal dynamics, or the existence of the moon, and which goes something like this: while the president might not be so strong on domestic issues, he’s very good at Protecting The Country From Terrorism.

Well, according to a story that came out recently, and which was mostly drowned out by the elections, the federal government’s record on fighting terrorism may not be as impressive as you think.

Researchers at Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) recently discovered that in the first nine months of fiscal year 2006 federal prosecutors rejected 87% of the international terrorism cases brought by the FBI, and the rejections have been increasing steadily since 2001.

The White House responded to the report the way they’ve always responded to empirical facts: by calling it “faulty” and “inaccurate,” and deriding its findings as “intellectually dishonest.”

Judging from last week’s election, though, I think the nation has already made up its mind about who’s being intellectually dishonest, and it’s definitely not the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. On the contrary, it’s the same bunch of yo-yos who cooked up false intelligence to dupe us into going to war with Iraq. Who held closed door meetings in Washington the day before 9/11 with a Pakistani general who a few weeks earlier had sent a $100,000 check to hijacker Mohammad Atta. Who granted no-bid contracts to a bunch of oil-rich mafia goons who were willing to sell our troops poisoned drinking water to save a buck.

And speaking of intellectual dishonesty, how about exploiting religious conservatives for political gains and then laughing about them behind their backs? Or cheating black people in Florida and Ohio out of their vote? Or leaking the name of a CIA officer to settle a political score? Or refusing to declassify important documents about 9/11? Or torturing innocent people and then lying about it? Or pretending to fight a phony war on terrorism while stealing our liberties from behind our backs?

In fact, the only honest moment in George W. Bush’s entire presidency came recently on the campaign trail when he finally admitted to voters in Nebraska the real reason why we’re in Iraq. “You can imagine a world,” he said, “in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources and then you can imagine them saying, ‘we’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.’”

No wonder the Republicans lost. I think Keith Olbermann said it best on Countdown: “Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about ‘timelines’ but instead extolled ‘benchmarks,’ you’ve now resorted, sir, to this? We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?”

If you spend time with the sorts of people I spend time with, you’ll probably have cynics in your life trying to persuade you from feeling overwhelmingly joyful at the results of this election, but for the moment at least, I think you should ignore them. We’ve witnessed an extraordinary thing in this country: the checking of a powerful totalitarian movement by the will of the people, just when a lot of us were beginning to fear that the system was beyond repair. There’s nothing phony or indoctrinated about the message Americans sent to Washington on Tuesday, and when you consider that it happened in spite of one of the most vicious propaganda campaigns in modern history, Americans have all the more reason to feel proud.

But this election hasn’t changed the fact that there are still people in the world who are being tortured and maimed and killed at the hands of this administration, and it’s for their sake that we must make Bush and the rest of them pay for their crimes. Read the following to find out what you can do to make that happen:

Subpoena Power, Congressional Hearings, and Special Counsel

But in the meantime, take faith that the America of Geronimo, Jefferson, and Muhammad Ali is live and kicking.

Tags: bush, Democrats, Elections, Global, homeland security, legislation, power, Republicans, society, Terrorism
Categories: Commentary, Global, Society, Power, Legislation, Homeland Security, Terrorism
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‘Mistakes’ or ‘plans’ in 9/11, Iraq invasion and occupation, War on Terror?

Authored by: Steve Hammons

Originally published in American Chronicle:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11401

In recent years, much been written and discussed about alleged ‘mistakes’ made prior to the 9/11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, the occupation of Iraq, the so-called ‘War on Terror,’ the attempted capture of Osama bin Laden and the dramatic increase in national spending and the national debt.While some have claimed that mistakes were made and that these mistakes led to problematic outcomes, others have suggested that the apparent failures or blunders were actually part of larger and hidden plans. Some combination of mistakes and planned outcomes might also be in play.

In examining important events and developments over the last five years, these differing views seem to emerge as something worth considering carefully, although some seem outlandish and little more than conspiracy theories.

However, the claims that mistakes could actually be part of well-thought-out planning can be explored by addressing the following topics which are typically used as the major examples of various ‘mistake theories’ and’ plan theories:’

- 9/11 attacks

- Invasion of Iraq

- Occupation of Iraq

- War on Terror

- Capture of Osama bin Laden

- Dramatically increased federal spending and national debt

It may be worth noting that in the cases of many of the current elected and appointed national leaders pulling the strings in Washington, D.C., and those behind the scenes, they have been accused of many things. But, for most of them, being stupid is not one of the accusations.

Below are just some of the theories that these recent developments were either based on mistakes or on plans. And, as mentioned, some combination of the two could be considered.

9/11 ATTACKS

Mistake theory:

Our intelligence and law enforcement services and those of our allies failed to understand, detect and prevent the 9/11 planning and attacks.

Plan theory:

The attacks were predicted by our own and allied intelligence and law enforcement services and were, at a minimum, allowed to happen. The motivation was to create ‘A New Pearl Harbor’ that would facilitate other agendas such as invading Iraq and establishing permanent bases there, boosting defense spending, protecting allies in the region and attaining domestic political advantage.

INVASION OF IRAQ

Mistake theory:

Our intelligence services believed that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq and reported it to political leaders who felt this was an unreasonable risk.

Plan theory:

There was ample evidence that there were no significant WMDs in Iraq that would pose a serious threat to the United States. The WMD threat was just a convenient way to make a case for invasion. The real reasons had more to do with securing Iraq’s oil supply, establishing permanent bases there, boosting defense spending, protecting allies in the region and political advantage.

OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

Mistake theory:

Despite recommendations by seasoned military leaders and others, U.S. troop levels were not sufficient for smooth occupation and establishment of peace and order in Iraq. Disbanding the Iraqi army, allowing chaos in the streets and other mistakes resulted in a significant ongoing insurgency, near-civil war and deaths and injuries to U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.

Plan theory:

If the goal was actually to stay in Iraq indefinitely, it might have been counterproductive to establish order, a working government, some measure of social cohesion and peace. If all had gone smoothly in the post-invasion occupation, many would call for U.S. forces to leave Iraq, mission accomplished. The turmoil and violence there actually provide a rationale for U.S. troops to stay in Iraq indefinitely.

WAR ON TERROR

Mistake theory:

Dehumanizing torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, war crimes and atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. personnel, inadvertent ‘collateral damage’ of death and injury to Iraq civilians including women and children, and other factors have made more people worldwide hostile toward the U.S. This has created more potential terrorists and increased the resolve of terrorists and enemies.

Plan theory:

Creating a never-ending threat of terrorism, and amplifying and expanding the hostility to the U.S. create continued opportunity for increased defense spending, military intervention and political advantage.

CAPTURE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

Mistake theory:

After the successful CIA and Army Special Forces-led invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. forces and leaders missed an opportunity to capture bin Laden in Tora Bora due to mistaken tactical decisions.

Plan theory:

U.S. leaders might not have wanted to capture bin Laden. His family is associated with powerful business interests and connections in the U.S. Keeping him at large might create a more vivid picture of an ongoing terror threat.

DRAMATICALLY INCREASED FEDERAL SPENDING AND NATIONAL DEBT

Mistake theory:

The billions of spending on the Iraq War, related expenditures and other unrelated spending has been a mistake by leaders that will cause future severe difficulties for the U.S.

Plan theory:

The billions spent on defense and war will enrich those who are politically connected. In addition, the tremendous overspending helps ‘Starve the Beast.’ The Starve the Beast view is that if U.S. social safety net programs like Social Security cannot be defeated politically, then by simply treating significant financial stresses on the U.S. Government in future years, these programs can be curtailed or eliminated due to future fiscal limitations.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

There seem to be many ideas and viewpoints about the alleged mistakes, plans and secret agendas that may be in play. It is obviously difficult to come to a clear conclusion on many of these topics.

Only the most naïve will take events and government actions at face value, for there are often many agendas going on behind the scenes. Legitimate and not-so-legitimate factors exist on many levels.

As outlandish and far-fetched as some of the views seem, it may be worthwhile for us to consider all possibilities and to look beneath the surface for answers.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11401

Tags: economics, economy, empire, foreign policy, Global, government, homeland security, Iraq, National,