Real Politiks

Police: Abuse and Accountability

ejtower — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:14:55 +0000

We now live in a world where the prevalence of cameras and the ability to mass distribute video through the internet has opened us to seeing problems previously ignorable. Problems which, viewed as individual instances, are often seen as mundane events, but when taken in aggregate across our country, gives great cause for concern. I am speaking of the many hundreds of videos showing police brutality. Questionable taser uses, seemingly undeserved arrests, deliberate interference with the media; all can be found peppering the internet, coupled with countless comments of growing discontent.

The existence of these cameras, on our phones, in public places, and on police cruisers, has been a source of paranoia for those afraid of the growing surveillance-state. In an age where the government is openly engaged in illegal wiretapping, there is a part of me that sees this fear as completely rational. However, when I look at what these cameras are exposing to the outside world I have to wonder if perhaps these cameras might be good to have in our hands, as a defense against that same tyranny.

Admittedly, this defense is only as good as the system prosecuting these abuses of power. This is the same system that has failed for eight years to produce any real oversight on its most public official, The President; it is no wonder to me that many are enraged, indeed, boiling with anger with the release of each video of abuse.

No single instance of abuse is grounds for the condemnation an entire police force, nor of all police officers. Taken in aggregate, however, I have become increasingly concerned about the disconnection between the police and those they “serve and protect.” This divide becomes very apparent when watching these videos. We do not live, nor have we ever really lived, in Andy Griffith’s Mayberry. However, I think that a real lack of direct social and personal connection to the community is giving rise to situations where abuses of power are becoming rampant; situations where the police see themselves at odds with the community itself, rather than a part of it.

The job of the police is difficult, complex, and dangerous, but this should not excuse officers from acting and treating others like human beings. Police officers are vested with many powers beyond a normal citizen to enforce the law, but with power should come responsibility and accountability. This is not what people see when they view the many hundred videos of police abuse online. For every instance of an officer being fired for their grievous actions, there are ten more instances where the officer is barely scolded before being sent back to work.

Every time this occurs it only fuels the growing masses of people that see the justice system as harboring a culture that protects its own, instead of the people. Indeed, some in power that believe the police are entitled to special breaks because of their difficult jobs. They believe that the police are only human, bound to have a bad day, and should be forgiven their failings. The police need to treat the community like humans, but we must also remember that they are only human themselves.

I agree with this, police are human too, but they are humans with the power of force and the legal backing to use it. This is in itself the reason they should not be entitled to special breaks. The idea that people in special positions of power should also be granted special leeway when they abuse this power is ludicrous, and tantamount to institutionalizing injustice. Special power should always be subjected to special scrutiny, and justify its action, if that power is to be taken for anything but tyranny.

As I sit writing, there are literally dozens of news stories, just today, about police abuse, being put out by new services across our country. In the myopic vision of justice, that takes each case on its own, there is no real problem to be seen here. The disconnection between police and community will continue to be ignored, and the growing anger will fester, further undermining the peoples trust in their government. I want the police to be a part of my community. The question that remains is when will they reach back and be apart of it?

Colonel Morris Davis, Rightous Fighter

ejtower — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:48:33 +0000

In my first realpolitiks column, found here, I asked a simple question: Why isn’t anyone in the Guantanamo Bay / Water boarding-torture system standing up and saying this is wrong? Well, my question is answered, and the name of the righteous dissenter is Colonel Morris Davis, depicted above as the Archangel Michael slaying the demonic White House.

Until last October, Colonel Davis was the lead prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. It was his job to organize, and prosecute the US Governments legal case against the “enemy combatants” that are being indefinitely detained on the Quasi-American territory. In October he resigned his position after the Bush Administration appointed William Haynes to be Pentagon general counsel, a position that oversees the defense, prosecution, and judge of the Guantanamo trial process.

William Haynes, it should be noted, is one of the key figures involved in the creation of legal arguments for ways to avoid the Geneva Convention. A former legal advisor to Donald Rumsfeld, he is essentially one of the architects of the whole “Detainee” and “Enhanced Interrogation” euphemism parade.

Colonel Davis explained in his December 10, 2007, L.A. Times op-ed. “I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system… I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively.”

Deeply politicized in what way you might ask? Well it seems that Haynes was placed by The Administration to essentially continue with a common Bush practice of putting politics before the law. In an article written by Geoff Elliott for The Australian, Colonel Davis speaking about the Australian Detainee David Hicks:

“At the time, you had John Howard [Prime Minister of Australia] in the press, making it clear to Americans that Hicks had to be charged by February,” Colonel Davis says.

“I was getting leaned on. We were getting pushed to get charges out before all the process was in place.”

Nor did it escape Colonel Davis’s attention that Mr. Cheney was due to visit Australia towards the end of last February.

It was clear the Hicks case was a top-agenda item with the then prime minister. In the end, Mr. Cheney would travel to Australia armed with good news.

The good news that David Hicks was going to be rammed through, made to plead guilty and then rubber stamped to go back to Australia without regards to his real guilt or innocence. David Hicks received a sentence of nine months for his “crimes” and we will probably never know if he deserved more, or less.

The whole system is a complete travesty. A political machine designed to make The Bush Administration, and their political allies abroad, look good. Furthermore, Colonel David alleges that the whole trial system is rigged. In a conversation that he recounted for The Nation:

When asked if he thought the men at Guantanamo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes — the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department. “[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,” recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, something that had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.’”

Davis submitted his resignation on October 4, 2007, just hours after he was informed that Haynes had been put above him in the commissions’ chain of command.

Last Friday Colonel Davis announced through The Washington Post that he would be acting as a witness for the defense in the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the driver of Osama bin-Ladin. It is still uncertain of the Pentagon will allow him to testify in that case, but at least the man has the principle to try to speak out against a system he believes to be corrupted.

Colonel Davis has taken honorable rank amongst the many service men that have stood against the government when they see that it has done wrong. From those who marched for veterans benefits after world war one, to those who spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Let’s hope that Colonel Davis will not loose heart when they come to silence him.

Malcolm X Assassinated Today in 1965

ejtower — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:14:37 +0000


Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21^st in 1965.    
In the above speech Malcolm X discusses the invisible movements forming against the Police State created by the police of Harlem in the early 60’s.  A situation common to many poor neighborhoods especially today.



Americas Great Wall, and Class War
ejtower — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:47:21 +0000
 
The Bush Administration and the elites that they represent are no strangers to class war but, because this is not an issue that is regularly discussed in the open, you might be unaware.  Class war is the term used to describe a situation where the elite rich people in political office, and in business, use their power to give other rich people breaks while making sure that the poor don’t get those same breaks.  Most of the poor people don’t pay any attention to this sort of collaboration by rich people, because they are usually distracted by issues that ignite extreme emotional reactions. Immigration for example!
Not many issues boil blood these days like discussing the idea of Spanish speaking people coming into the country.  The reactions range from complete xenophobic hatred of having to hear the phrase “Dos para la prensa española” when they are navigating a call center labyrinth; to the more nuanced closeted discussion of why it would be better for everyone if they simply stayed in their home country.
Few people have really seen this issue as clearly as Jim Hightower. He writes in his recent article on The Hightower Lowdown:

…Why do these immigrants come? The answer is not that they are pulled by our jobs and government benefits, but that they are pushed by the abject poverty that their families face in Mexico…
…in the last 15 years, Mexico’s longstanding system of sustaining its huge population of poor citizens (including small self-sufficient farms, jobs in state-owned industries and subsidies for such essentials as tortillas) has been scuttled at the insistence of U.S. banks, corporations, government officials and “free market” ideologues. In the name of “modernizing” the Mexican economy, such giants as Citigroup, Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and GE — in cahoots with the plutocrats and oligarchs of Mexico — have laid waste to that country’s grass-roots economy, destroying the already-meager livelihoods of millions…

In simple terms, the reason that Mexican people “want” to come live here is because of the systematic class war waged by US based multi-national corporations against the people lead economy of Mexico in the name of Free Trade.
Literally millions of Mexican and Latino immigrants are being pushed up, out of their homes in the south, into the United States by a class war waged by some of the major businesses we deal with every day.  For anyone who lives or lived in the old rust-belt, people that have been equally screwed over by Free Trade, being forced from your home region into another is nothing new.  Yet, instead of finding common thread with the Mexican immigrants against the perpetrators of class war, the US working class supports a “Great Wall of America” to stop the Mexicans from getting into the old U.S.A, the land of immigrants!
Interesting facts have come to light through an article written by Melissa del Bosque, for the Texas Observer, showing that class war isn’t just something that is waged in other countries at the expense of other “kinds” of people.  It is at its strongest right here in your backyard.  That is, if you are a poor person living on any of the land where The Department of Homeland Security has decided to build “The Great Wall of America.” 
In the article, del Bosque, discussing the land of Brownsville, TX resident Eloisa Tamez, writes:

While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort…
…Along the border, preliminary plans for fencing seem to target landowners of modest means and cities and public institutions such as the University of Texas at Brownsville, which rely on the federal government to pay their bills….

Yet, the land owned by oil billionaire Ray L. Hunt, family friend and political contributor to the Bush Administration, will remain entirely untouched with wall construction stopping dead at his properly line.  Meanwhile construction will drive the wall right through the living rooms of anyone who might not be able to lobby, sue, or buy their way out of the situation.
In one case, the plutocratic meandering of the wall may leave one family of U.S. citizens on the Mexican side of the border wall.  You can see the pitiful attempt at news coverage perpetrated by local news by clicking here.  According to the family their senators are unable to get them answers about how things will work, which makes me laugh, because they are also the people who funded the Iraq war, the wall, and the class war against their constituents.  Apparently knowing what you are funding is not a requirement for senators.
So in the future, dear reader, when you look at the patchwork wall on the Mexican-U.S. border and see the unhappy Mexicans streaming away from their homes through the property of oil tycoons and green golf resorts in the middle of a desert.  Remember that the real problem is rooted in the trade deals, and class war that favors the rich of the world over the poor, and not in the fact that you have to hear “Press Two for Spanish” in a language you’ll never bother to learn.

         


Muhammad Cartoons, Who Cares?
ejtower — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 05:15:57 +0000

Fueled mostly by jealousy and a desire to have our own cartoons spark riots, cancel international summits, and disrupt peace talks; we have decided to talk about the Danish Cartoon Scandal.  Shameless?  Sure, but we need attention too.
Politiken, the left leaning Danish newspaper, reprinted the controversial Danish cartoons created by Kurt Westergaard in 2005 after a plot to assassinate the cartoonist was uncovered by Danish Police on February 12, 2008.  The original response by the Muslim members of our planet resulted in the death of more than 50 people, and not to disappoint the media, the response this time around is just as exciting.  Continuing with a sixth straight day of riots in Denmark; rioters, described as members of the immigrant neighborhoods under the age of 18, are thought to be protesting police harassment and were only fueled by the re-release of the cartoons.
Going on a Middle Eastern tour, the cartoons have made a huge impact.  Pakistani government officials have summoned a Danish envoy to lodge “strong protest” over the cartoons.  Iranian lawmakers have condemned the entire country of Denmark over the cartoons.  Senior Iraqi officials warn that cartoons could fuel extremism.  Meanwhile, Egypt has banned four foreign newspapers over the republication of the cartoons.  
Following all of this, I can’t help but wonder at the uproar.  I can’t help but think that Muslims are a touch over sensitive here.  Hand wringing liberals eager to appease the over sensitive have also joined the chorus of those condemning the re-printing of the cartoons.  I am not one of them. 
For my part, I think we should publish the cartoons every year – maybe twice a year – until it is so common an occurrence that riots just don’t happen anymore.  Why am I an insensitive bastard towards other cultures?  The answer is that I have thought about the issue and I just can’t find a western cultural analogue to this problem.  There is no drawing that will result in riots here, at least none that will piss me off and thus be worthy of note.  In fact, draw me lots of terrible iconoclastic cartoon attacks on western culture.  Chances are that I already agree.
I cannot support censorship here.  It’s too stupid.

         


Demonizing The RIAA is Easy
ejtower — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 04:22:39 +0000
 
“RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.”  They are the mercenary lawyers of the recording industry, working hard “to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists…The RIAA® also certifies Gold®, Platinum®, Multi-Platinum™, and Diamond sales awards, as well as Los Premios De Oro y Platino™, an award celebrating Latin music sales.”
Anyone who has ever become paranoid about the content piracy they are engaged in will be familiar with the shade of the RIAA looming triumphant in their nightmares.  They are the ones that come crashing through the door and take your computer in the name of the recording industry.  They are the ones that threaten your future for downloading music, and campaign to remind the public that copyright infringement is a serious crime after all.  For the simple minded this issue is black and white – crime is crime – and criminals should be prosecuted.
The truth is that the issue is not that black and white.  Internet “piracy” as it has called by the industry, and been righteously adopted by the underground, is not just a generation of thieves that should be sued into the ground.  It is in fact a cultural phenomena, and technological progression that the RIAA is working hard to stamp out.  For at least the last two decades cultural activists have been concerned about the centralization of creative control into the hands of a few major media conglomerates.  Their concern was that eventually corporations would be able to define what culture would be from one end to the other, music to fashion.  
Well, peer-to-peer technology, the technology at the root of the piracy underground, is the means to break that growing corporate media centralization.  It is also the technology that the media lobby has stated its intent to destroy.  Destroy not just because of the piracy actually going on, but also because of the possibility for piracy the technology creates.  Instead of working to fit their business models to the new distribution technology, they have opted to become its largest adversary.
The problem created by the RIAA is more complex than just their declared war on technological progress, however.  In their infinite wisdom, you will note from the quote on the top of the page, they also declare what art is to be legitimate and what art is illegal.  In their capacity as the gods of art they have already sought to destroy the career of more than one artist for using samples without paying sampling fees.  I will not belabor the issue by telling you that this is exactly the situation that the cultural activists have feared for the last two decades.  
We now live in a time when the corporate media conglomerates can hire their mercenary lawyers to define what culture can survive and what culture will not.  We live in a time where these same conglomerates can wage an open war against technological progress that threatens their business models, and have the mass media glaze over the issue as merely a question of copyright piracy.  Now is not the time for pretending to moral simplicity, as the threat of monoculture is looming triumphant in the shade of the RIAA.

         


Bloody Consumerism
ejtower — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:18:18 +0000

 
 With everything else under the guilty sun why do I have to bring up blood diamonds and child labor abuse in the cocoa fields on Valentines Day, of all days?  The answer is because I’m single and I’m bitter.  More over, everyone knows that Valentines Day is the forbearer that made way for every corporate backed consumerist holiday from its sibling holiday Sweetest Day, to the most laughable of all ass kissing days – Boss’s Day.  This Valentines Day I want you to focus your attention not on the incredible amount of money you will spend bribing your significant other into having sex with you, but upon what that money is going to fund on the other side of the world.
In these United   States it is expected that people will spend an estimated 17 billion dollars on today alone.  A figure which will get a solid rise out of most economists who have been concerned lately that consumer spending is too low.  If you have decided to spend it on either chocolate or, if you’re better off, diamonds, prepare for a guilt trip.
Today in Fortune Magazine, Christian Parenti writes about Blood Chocolate.  It seems that after the world’s largest chocolate producers began their program of “self-regulation,” where by they would work to wean the industry off the need for child labor, they have failed to reach any goal or make any progress.  The proposed self-regulation scheme went into effect after US Government officials threatened to begin labeling certain chocolates as being free from child labor.  The industry rebelled against such an idea, and surprise, surprise, when Tulane University inspectors went to investigate the “progress” of this self-regulating industry; they found conditions on the ground were the same as ever.
In his article, Christian Parenti describes the cycle of poverty which promotes the use of child labor, rather than educating children.  Many children are forced to learn to become farmers not because of guns pointed at their heads, but because the farmer’s share of your chocolate purchase is so incredibly small that it is nigh indescribable.  
The system is rather smart, if you are an international chocolate producer.  The chocolate makers do not directly own any farmlands, and purchase all of their cocoa through warehousing middle men.  This means that the major chocolate producers get to benefit from child labor prices, without having to employ the children directly.  The middle men pay the farmers next to nothing for their cocoa, and collect it into huge warehouses where it is then sold to chocolate producers at a significantly higher price.  The middle men effectively launder the child produced cocoa by gathering all the cocoa into one huge warehouse where the chocolate producers have plausible deniability.  Neat, isn’t it?
As for Diamonds, you will be glad to know that according to Cecilia Gardner, president of the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, “Less than 0.1% of the diamonds that are being produced today could be considered conflict diamonds – the underlying problem has been addressed.”
Well done multi-national diamond cartel folks!  The question is how many of the billions of diamonds on the market is .1% actually?  Probably just a few thousand severed hands worth.
However, you should know that the United Nations Kimberly Process for certifying that diamonds are blood free has a small problem.  If you happened to pass Lev Leviev’s Madison Avenue jewelry store in NYC today you might have noticed a large number of protesters carrying signs.  They are upset because Lev Leviev, an Israeli diamond mogul, spends a considerable amount of his diamond fortune not on oppressing the people of Sierra Leone, but on expanding radical Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip.
How does this turn into a problem for the Kimberly Process?  Well, if the allegations against Lev Leviev are true then his diamonds are, while not produced in conflict at the cost of blood, definitely going to further the blood shed of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict.  Personally, I think that any major corporation that uses its fortunes to further bloodshed is producing a “Blood Product” and should be labeled as such.
Just think of it!  How interesting will the world be when you’re aware that you’re reading real politiks on your Blood Computer, while drinking a cup of Blood Coffee, and eating a Blood Banana for breakfast?  In reality we are all using Blood Products all the time.  We are all isolated here in the consumerist west.  It should come as little surprise to us that when we turn our backs and demand lower prices; the corporations that want to stay in business go to rather inhumane ends to provide for our wants.  
We should pressure business to stop mixing blood and profit.  Yet, we should also be aware that the root of these problems is not completely “evil business.”  We should understand that the root culprit is our own unquestioning, uninterested, demand for more, cheaper, now.  Damn the consequences.

         


Make Telecoms Responsible For Spying
ejtower — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:55:00 +0000
 

It is usually after a few days of my paranoid discussion about the rise of the police state when my right wing friends will pipe up with some well meaning advice to calm my caffeinated nerves.  This time, in regards to warrant-less wiretapping, they spoke with such trust for the government that I had to wonder how many times they would need to be hit with a stun-gun, clubbed with a stick, or turned out of their wheel chairs by police before they would ever understand.  They said, “Only criminals worry about wiretaps, law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear.  Are you a terrorist?”
Yes!  Yes, I am!
After 9-11 the Bush Administration repeatedly monitored communications between American citizens and foreign people without the use of warrants, an action in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.  Complacent in this illegal information gathering endeavor were many of our nations telecommunication companies who not only turned over the information without a fight, they also violated many of the established legal confidences they are bound to uphold.
Glenn Greenwald points out the many violations done by telecom companies when they assisted the government in his article in Salon:

Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 provides that “[e]very telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of . . . customers.” 18 U.S.C. 2511 makes warrantless eavesdropping a felony; 18 U.S.C. 2702 requires that any “entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication” without a court order; 47 U.S.C. 605 states that “no person receiving, assisting in receiving, transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof, except through authorized channels of transmission or reception“; and 18 U.S.C. 2520 provides for civil damages for any violations.

The question which is now being fought over is: will we, the people of the United States, be able to seek damages and hold the telecommunication companies liable for their part and complacency in the violation of our trust?  This past Tuesday the Senate failed to hold the telecoms responsible, so the fight continues, and the question remains, should the communications companies be the tools of power?
We will undoubtedly allow Bush to escape unscathed from his illegal actions against our liberties, but how much further will we travel towards Orwell’s Hell?  AT&T promises to deliver a future, but if their involvement with the Bush administration is any clue, it will be a future of viewing screens.
At this time I urge you to take a few minutes to get involved.  The House and The Senate still have to broker a deal, and there is still an opportunity to hold the Telecoms responsible.  Write to your congress person through the EFF’s form letter, or Call them and help to bolster their spine against the corporations, and against the administration.
Mistrust of government police powers is a healthy attitude to have, and I have to really question the minds of those that don’t question power.  This sort of faith in the noble cause of security would have doomed the founding fathers to hang today, and will greatly erode the liberties of the private citizen.

         


Public-Private Police State
ejtower — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:22:57 +0000
 
 
Public-Private Police State
If you are anything like me you don’t see America when you look out your window – you see a complex matrix of organizations and people vying for power.  Cynical, sure, but my cynicism is fed by a constant stream of supporting evidence.  
Today for example, I read in Progressive Magazine that agents from the FBI are linking together with key representatives from corporations in an organization called Infragard.  The purpose of which is to forge “an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States.”  On the whole it sounds like the sort of apple pie organization that something like The Department of Homeland Security might fund.  It gives you an image of Main Street America standing guard against the terrorist scum.  
I really hate apple pie.  After a few minutes of digging around I came to the conclusion that this organization is like a cross between the Masons, and the citizen spies of East Germany.  Let’s begin with the part that is most like the Masons, you have to get an FBI background check to become a member, and you have to get an established member to “sponsor” you.  Once you get in then they give you the super-secret decoder ring that grants you “access to an FBI secure communication network complete with VPN encrypted website, webmail, listservs, message boards and much more.”  Where you will “learn time-sensitive, infrastructure related security information from government sources such as DHS and the FBI.”
If the creepy security cult elitism of this has not sunk in yet, then rest assured that members will have many opportunities to “Network with other companies that help maintain our national infrastructure. Quick Fact: 350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”  Making tin foil origami hats yet?
In The Progressive article, Matthew Rothschild quotes an anonymous member of Infragard discussing a meeting where an FBI agent allegedly informed the membership about their responsibly when Martial Law is declared:
“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.

But that’s not all.
“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says. 
I was able to confirm that the meeting took place where he said it had, and that the FBI and Homeland Security did make presentations there. One InfraGard member who attended that meeting denies that the subject of lethal force came up. But the whistleblower is 100 percent certain of it. “I have nothing to gain by telling you this, and everything to lose,” he adds. “I’m so nervous about this, and I’m not someone who gets nervous.”
Everyone got their hats on now?  Good.  
It should be noted that the FBI denies any of those allegations.  The Infragard crowd is nothing more than a useful group of highly briefed, concerned citizens.  The Michigan Militia was also just a bunch of men walking around in the woods with assault riffles, but whatever.  Even if what the FBI says is true about this organization, we should still be concerned by its existence.  Granting special privileges to anyone, informational, or networking opportunities, is not the purpose of the FBI.   The qualifications and highly secretive nature of the organizations membership is cause enough for alarm.   
This may not be the bulk works of some grand conspiracy, but it can certainly be recognized as an organizational structure that would easily lend itself to abuse.  When the government is compiling a special class of security informants from the corporate world it is a move with obvious and ominous parallels to the Nazi SA and SS.  A self-satisfied network of powerful, well connected, patriotic business people, just waiting to do a service for their country in a time of need. 
Such a concentration of willing tools for power should be understood as a real danger to civil liberties.

         


The GOP Inner-demons
ejtower — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:33:16 +0000

 
Let me be clear and upfront.  I will not be voting in the coming 2008 presidential election.  The system and the people in charge of it are corrupt, and I am deeply sickened that so many people think that voting and freedom are synonymous.  As though anyplace ballots exist, people are free.  The idea “democracy is liberty” is the great imperial slogan of the 21st century.  It is the mantra for Iraq that will help find that country’s oil into the hands of multinational oil companies, and it is the mantra of blindness that makes Americans not notice when its government moves the country ever further into a police state.
A clear example of my problem with the system, and its methods, I present John McCain.  He is the likely GOP nominee, unless he explodes and looks so psychotic that even Republicans would not vote for him.  John McCain is not a conservative.  He is the sort of politician that leaves a bad taste in the mouths of real conservatives, a fact that his campaign is now desperately trying to spin – pastperfect, 1984, ministry of truth style.  This is the way campaigns are run.  
John McCain has sinned against the inner-demons of the Grand Old Party (GOP) a number of times.  He was part of “comprehensive campaign finance reform” where major corporations were somewhat denied the ability to (purchase) donate direct and unlimited funds to political candidates.  He voted against The Bush Tax Cuts, he came out in favor of a more liberal immigration plan, and all of this is resting firmly in the mal-developed forebrains of the conservative base.  They remember his sins.  They’re feeling angry and cheated.
It is now up to the McCain Campaign spin doctors to remake the past, (distract) focus the conservatives on the goal of “winning”, or find a way to placate their hatred by speaking directly to the favorite issues.  In short, it is time to toss out the truth and start lying about who John McCain really is as a politician.  It is time to manufacture the consent of the conservative base by rebuilding the McCain image from the ground up.  If they do it “right” then John McCain will come out the other side of his spin machine like Superman out of a telephone booth.  He will change his costume from the partisan friendly John McCain to the vein popping, war mongering, Captain Conservative.
Many people on the left are jumping up and down in glee over this conflict internal to the GOP, and to a certain degree I am too, but they have to realize that in the end the voters will be properly propagandized into coming out.  They will either come to vote for Captain Conservative or against the evil Dr. Liberal, but the spin machines always win in the end.  This is why I have stopped voting.  I have been to the sausage making factory, seen the process, worked the meats with my own hands, and now have no appetite for hot dogs.
I am disgusted by the ends to which a campaign will go to control an election, and then call it the will of the people.  What we call freedom in this country is a travesty.