Out Of Hibernation To Announce The Imminent Arrival Of The Wee Bro's Photography Website

Body-Snatched Nation

By BRENDAN COONEY

As scary as it is to watch someone electrocuted for speaking his mind, the most horrifying parts of the Andrew Meyer incident at the University of Florida are the things happening on the periphery. (The video can be seen here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HgrFSHZfD1o)

There is the face of the woman on the right of the aisle, staring obediently ahead to Sen. John Kerry as Meyer is pinned to the ground just behind her. Or the man on the left smiling as the action comes right past him like actors tearing down the fourth wall.

The only person with the power to stop the assault was the man with the microphone, and his affect never rose above flat. Shortly before the cops pressed the volts into Meyer's chest, Kerry can be heard droning, "Folks, I think if we all just calm down." The folks he is addressing, of course, are not the police but the few audience members who have risen from their seats.

It's as if one is watching the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," with Meyer coming out as the last human who has not been struck by the pods that replace people with emotionless doubles.

Perhaps half the comments of Youtube viewers support the Tasing as an apt treatment for someone so disruptive. Meyer may have been loud, attention-hungry and an awkward presence in the room, but the awkwardness is nothing compared with that of people trying to work out the concept of free speech in their online comments.

"The First Amendment does not guarantee anyone the right to make a public ass of oneself at the expense of others..." writes Russ Thayer. Joseph (comment 87 on the New York Times site) agrees: "I hate to tell you, but the meaning of Freedom of Speech doesn't mean you can scream and shout at people. To exercise your right to Freedom of Speech you need to remain calm." Says Dusty Bottoms, also on the Times site: "Freaking idiot deserved it.... [H]ow many times does one have to be warned? I'm all for free speech, but do it in an intelligent way."

The proportion of voices sympathetic to Meyer was altogether different among readers of the Times of London. Thirty-three thought the Tasing was wrong, and only three supported it. Should it be any surprise that readers of the foreign press are less authoritarian than readers of our mainstream media?

Duncan Roy, a United Kingdom resident, posts this comment on the New York Times site: "If shouting and agitation were the criteria for tasing then our entire british parliament would be tazed! What is it with you Americans that you have become so frightened of free and passionate speech?"

Police tasing students and others without cause is nothing new. A video of an even scarier incident at UCLA last fall can be watched on youtube at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=AyvrqcxNIFs

Police Tased this student because he didn't have his student ID in the library. The cell-phone video shows an eerily passive group of zombies, inching slowly forward as the victim cries for help. Only after the student is hauled out of the library, still being tased, do a couple students start asking for badge numbers, to which the reply is: "Back up or you'll get Tased too."

The alien pods haven't gotten us all, however. Based on the volume of comments people posted on the Meyer incident, watching the video clearly hit many Americans a lot harder than it did mainstream journalists.

Mike Bellman of Columbia, Missouri, wrote, "I am ten times ashamed for the spectators who watched this debacle slack-jawed and motionless like they were watching the you-tube video online. Shame on citizens who idly watch this kind of abuse and not recognize it. Shame on all of them including John Kerry who didn't relieve the police of their duties. And finally shame on anyone who doesn't have the courage to question authority or believe that another American has the right to speak freely in an open forum. I am ashamed to live in this America and I weep for the US Constitution."

And an "ECartman" wrote that a "lot worse happened in Berkeley in late 60's and early 70's.... Wish these students could get more incensed with what we are doing in Iraq everyday.... Don't expect this to happen though as these kids really got no soul."

There's a whole racially charged aspect to the question of police authority that I can't begin to unpack here, but "Jargon" says on the Times site: "I am so sick of this blind, unquestionable trust that whites hold for police."

On the spectrum of eeriness, watching Jimmy Kimmel laugh about the incident on late-night TV was strange, but not as bad as reading dismissive accounts of it in the mainstream press.

Shameful ad hominem reporting appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Salon.com. It's as if these reporters can't keep these two concepts separate: "he was annoying" and "he deserved to be arrested and assaulted." This confusion reminds me of people I sometimes meet overseas who can't treat me as an individual because I come from the loathsome United States. The fact that Meyer's website features pranks and skits, notably that he carried a "Harry Dies" sign after the release of the last Harry Potter book, seems to have persuaded many people that he deserved what he got.

Someone who exudes such a reclining air that he will probably never be on the receiving end of a Taser is The Washington Post's Emil Steiner, who writes, "Kerry's voice, however, was no match for Meyer's, who despite not having a mic continued to hog the audience's attention with such glib catch phrases as: Help me! Help!'..."

This smug tone is jolted awake by the first comment below the piece, by a "Mark" from Rhode Island: "One word: FASCISM! Be afraid to ask vital questions in our free republic."

Steiner refers to the "mysterious" yellow book Meyer recommended for Kerry. The book was Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast. Meyer identified the author as a top investigative journalist; the senator said he'd already read it. What's the mystery, aside from the stunning disconnect between body-snatched reporters and the citizenry they putatively inform?

In observing the cultural milieu in which this incident took place, from the blank reaction of students and Kerry to online comments to press reports, there was an atavistic smack of the taste of what it was to be living in the United States in 2002 and 2003. It was the most haunting time I have known, when story after story in the mainstream press sold the war, and when friends of mine with college and law and medical and doctoral degrees jumped on the bandwagon, and I looked all around me and saw only pods.

The question is when does it happen; when do the pods take over our souls in this land? Is it in adolescence, when we have individuality pounded out of us by the mob so eager to squelch any deviant thought or behavior? Is it in classrooms or in front of televisions? What is the pod?

Surely Kerry was alive in Vietnam, when he saved his fellow soldiers, and when he came home to protest the war; but somewhere in 37 years of public life he got the lobotomy needed to win elections here. (Politicians with a pulse, such as Ralph Nader and Jessie Jackson, don't stand a chance.) Even after he had time to reflect, Kerry offered the Associated Press this safe pablum: "Whatever happened, the police had a reason, had made their decision that there was something they needed to do. Then it's a law enforcement issue, not mine."

Lost in the melee was one of Meyer's questions: "Why not impeach Bush before he has a chance to invade Iran?" It's a question that, if seriously considered, would Tase the brains of zombies everywhere.

Brendan Cooney is an anthropologist living in New York City. He can be reached at: itmighthavehappened@yahoo.com

The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America

By Peter Dale Scott

Published: Tuesday August 14th, 2007
In this exclusive excerpt from his powerful new book, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), UC Berkeley professor emeritus Peter Dale Scott asks whether there is a connection between America’s historical use of terror as a political weapon and the recent moves by the Bush administration to suspend the Constitution and create a “shadow government” in the wake of the next terrorist attack: CONTINUE

Threat of Martial Law in The United States is Real

"What If Our Mercenaries Turn On Us?", by Chris Hedges

Published on Sunday, June 3, 2007 by the Philadelphia Inquirer
What If Our Mercenaries Turn On Us?
by Chris Hedges
Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire in Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war in Iraq may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and building America’s first modern mercenary army.There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to other civilian military “contractors” who carry out logistical support activities such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000.
“We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense,” said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). “How in the hell do you justify that?”
The privatization of war hands an incentive to American corporations, many with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq. But even more disturbing is the steady rise of this modern Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome was a paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse, and eventually plunged the Roman Republic into tyranny and despotism. Despotic movements need paramilitary forces that operate outside the law, forces that sow fear among potential opponents, and are capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors. And in the wrong hands, a Blackwater could well become that force.
American taxpayers have so far handed a staggering $4 billion to “armed security” companies in Iraq such as Blackwater, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.). Tens of billions more have been paid to companies that provide logistical support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) of the House Intelligence Committee estimates that 40 cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors. It is unlikely that any of these corporations will push for an early withdrawal. The profits are too lucrative.
Mercenary forces like Blackwater operate beyond civilian and military law. They are covered by a 2004 edict passed by American occupation authorities in Iraq that immunizes all civilian contractors in Iraq from prosecution.
Blackwater, barely a decade old, has migrated from Iraq to set up operations in the United States and nine other countries. It trains Afghan security forces and has established a base a few miles from the Iranian border. The huge contracts from the war - including $750 million from the State Department since 2004 - have allowed Blackwater to amass a fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships. Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, points out that Blackwater has also constructed “the world’s largest private military facility - a 7,000-acre compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina.” Blackwater also recently opened a facility in Illinois (”Blackwater North”) and, despite local opposition, is moving ahead with plans to build another huge training base near San Diego. The company recently announced it was creating a private intelligence branch called “Total Intelligence.”
Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears to have little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. But what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with government money, which operates outside the law and without constitutional constraint.
Mercenary units are a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements. Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built rogue paramilitary forces. And the appearance of Blackwater fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, may be a grim taste of the future. In New Orleans Blackwater charged the government $240,000 a day.
” ‘It cannot happen here’ is always wrong,” the philosopher Karl Popper wrote. “A dictatorship can happen anywhere.”
The word contractor helps launder the fear and threat out of a more accurate term: “paramilitary force.” We’re not supposed to have such forces in the United States, but we now do. And if we have them, we have a potential threat to democracy. On U.S. soil, Blackwater so far has shown few signs of being an out-and-out rogue retainer army, though they looked the part in New Orleans. But were this country to become even a little less stable, outfits like Blackwater might see a heyday. If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown that triggers social unrest, or a series of environmental disasters, such paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could ruthlessly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to corporations, and to right-wing interests such as the Christian Right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on the streets in New Orleans could appear on our streets.
Chris Hedges (hedgesscoop@aol.com) is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and won a Pulitzer Prize as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. He is author, mostly recently, of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”
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Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 by The Guardian/UK

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps
From Hitler to Pinochet and Beyond, History Shows There Are certain Steps That Any Would-Be Dictator Must Take To Destroy Constitutional Freedoms. And George Bush and His Administration Seem To Be Taking Them All

by Naomi Wolf

CLICK HERE

Working for the Clampdown

[Lots of good info in the whited hyperlinks]

Blueprint for Dictatorship
Recent legislation sets us up for tyranny
by Justin Raimondo, antiwar.com

[picture: Eric Drooker]

America is headed for a military dictatorship – and recent legislation makes this all but inevitable. Last September, Congress passed the Defense Authorization Act, which empowered the president to declare martial law with very little provocation, namely in the aftermath of a "terrorist attack or incident." Having determined that "the execution of the laws" is hampered by the "incident," the president can unilaterally impose martial law – without the consent of Congress, which need only be informed of the event "as soon as practicable." The only condition attached instructs the president to report to Congress after 14 days, and every 14 days thereafter.

This use of the military to enforce domestic order is a new development in American history, one that augurs a turning point not only in terms of law, but also in our evolving political culture. Such a measure would once have provoked an outcry – on both sides of the aisle. When the measure passed, there was hardly a ripple of protest: the Senate approved it unanimously, and there were only thirty-something dissenting votes in the House. Added to the Military Commissions Act [.pdf], this new brick in the wall of domestic repression creates the structure of a new imperial system on the ruins of the old constitutional order. George W. Bush and his hard-core neoconservative henchmen may have lost the war in Iraq, but they have won a virtually uncontested victory at home: the conquest of the old republic by an emerging imperial order. This recalls the opening of Garet Garrett's 1952 philippic, Rise of Empire, wherein he diagnosed the essential indeterminacy of the transition:

"We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire. If you ask when, the answer is that you cannot make a single stroke between day and night; the precise moment does not matter. There as no painted sign to say: 'You are now entering Imperium.'"

The usually prescient Garrett got it somewhat wrong here: The single stroke between day and night can be fixed precisely in time, at 8:45 a.m. EDT on Sept. 11, 2001, and the Military Commissions Act and the disturbing changes in the U.S. Code outlined above are the closest to painted signs we are likely to get. Waiting in the wings, an infamous cabal took advantage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, moving with preternatural speed to consolidate a dictatorship of fear. With the passage of more recent legislation, they are now moving to consolidate their gains. Sinisterly, the new legislation also alters the language of Title 10, Chapter 15, Section 333 of the U.S. Code (the so-called Insurrection Act) in an ominous manner:

"Whenever the president considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time."

Why insert the bolded phrase – unless your objective is to widen the category of miscreants to include those exercising their First Amendment rights? No one expects an insurgency to be launched in this day and age in America, yet peaceably assembling to protest government policies can easily be interpreted to include "obstructionists" who might be "dispersed." As José Padilla discovered, any American can be kidnapped and held without trial – or even formal charges – on the orders of the president, and the granting of unprecedented power to rule by decree builds on this neo-royalist theory. The Bushian doctrine of the "unitary executive," which gives the occupant of the White House monarchical power in wartime, has now been approved by the Democrats, who can't wait to wield it themselves. Of course, they would exercise such unholy power only in a good way – say, if a state refused to cooperate in enforcing or implementing federal legislation instituting a draft, or, more likely, federalizing a state National Guard unit to be shipped to the Middle East.

Oh, you mean that's not so good? Just wait until the Democrats get their hands on all that power: then you'll see the real collapse of the movement to preserve civil liberties in America. Remember, it was Hillary Clinton who said of the Internet: "We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are always competing values. There's no free decision that I'm aware of anywhere in life, and certainly with technology that's the case." Yes, the technology is very "exciting," she averred, yet "there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function. What does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation, or to respond to what someone says?"

The First Amendment is not big with Hillary and never has been. She's power-mad, and every once in a while the frigid mask gives way to the face of a real authoritarian, albeit a different one than that of the red-state fascists, as Lew Rockwell describes the anti-libertarian Right. Blue-state fascists trample on our civil liberties "for the children," but the effect is the same: bipartisan support for the abolition of our old republic and the inauguration of a new era in American history: the Age of Empire.

With the neoconized "conservative" movement transformed into a force fully committed to outright authoritarianism, and the "liberals" defending the depredations of the Democrats in power, who will be left to defend what's left of the Constitution? Just Ron Paul and Alexander Cockburn. The rest will go with the herd instinct of sheep threatening to stampede at the apparent intrusion of a wolf in their pasture.

Under the terms of this legislation, who defines a terrorist "incident"? The president. Who defines an "unlawful combination"? The president. Who determines that a "conspiracy" is in progress, one that threatens national security and domestic order? The president of these United States – which are to be united, in our darkest future, by a superpresident who can outlaw the opposition with the stroke of a pen and is more a military leader than the chief executive of an ostensible republic.

Stop, for a moment, and consider where we are in the spring of 2007.

On the home front, the representatives of the people have conceded the last of their waning powers to the executive branch and paved the way for the restoration of royalism in America. Overseas, American troops are fighting a war of conquest – there is no other way to describe it – in an effort to prop up a rapidly failing puppet government in the Middle East. Meanwhile, U.S. forces are gathering in the Persian Gulf for what looks to be a strike against Iran.

The unpopularity of our foreign policy is increasingly a cause for concern in the Imperial City, where both parties have colluded – with surprisingly little dissent – in ensuring a permanent U.S. military presence in the Middle East. It is merely a question of the size of our footprint that divides the two major parties on this all-important question. The Democrats want to "redeploy" – to Qatar and other neighboring countries. The Republicans won't give up an inch of conquered Iraqi territory and instead want to extend the battle into Iran, which is already the target of a not-so-covert campaign aiming at "regime change." (The Iran Freedom Support Act, authorizing millions in aid to "democratic" groups, was supported by the leadership of both parties in Congress.)

Rising antiwar sentiment worries William F. Buckley Jr., who opines that "There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican Party will survive this dilemma." Given the authoritarian proclivities of the Bush administration and the neoconized GOP, there are grounds for wondering whether the republic will survive. We are just a terrorist "incident," either real or imagined, away from a declaration of martial law and all its attendant consequences. Buckley grimly notes the polls are "savagely decisive" on the war question, and he asks: "Beyond affirming executive supremacy in matters of war, what is George Bush going to do?" The answer may be contained in Title 10, Chapter 15, Section 333.

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.) are sponsoring legislation that would repeal the changes, but, as Sen. John Warner pointed out the other day, when the Insurrection Act was revised to give the president extraordinary powers, no one raised any objection. Now, suddenly, the senators, including Warner, see some reason to regret their hasty actions – do they know something we don't?

I fear, however, that it may be too late. Bush will surely veto the Leahy-Bond measure – and, if necessary, declare America's governors, who all oppose this brazen usurpation, an "unlawful combination," as the Insurrection Act puts it. Then he will be empowered to "disperse" them, and the Senate, at will.

I'm back to Garet Garrett, who never fails to come up with some apt aphoristic prognostication, this one being from his classic The Revolution Was:

"There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom."

Prominent Conservatives Launch Effort To Restore "Civil Liberties Under Assault By Executive Branch"

The Huffington Post | Melinda Henneberger | Posted March 20, 2007 11:29 AM

Four prominent conservative thinkers are set to launch a campaign "to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the Executive Branch," arguing that, "since 9/11, the President has acquired too much power."

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who led the effort to impeach President Clinton, is one of the organizers of the effort, called the American Freedom Agenda. Others are David Keene of the American Conservative Union, writer and conservative direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie, and constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who served in the Reagan administration as associate deputy attorney general.

At a 1 p.m. news conference today at the National Press Club, they will pitch a legislative package "to restore congressional oversight and habeas corpus, end torture and extraordinary rendition, narrow the President's authority to designate 'enemy combatants,' prevent unconstitutional wiretaps, email and mail openings, protect journalists from prosecution under the Espionage Act, and more."

In a statement, the four said the president "has encroached on the power of Congress to make laws, and on the power of the courts to interpret the law - a scenario that the Founding Fathers foresaw and warned against." As a result, they said, "We are issuing this call to Americans of all political and philosophical persuasions to join us in urging Congress to enact The American Freedom Agenda."

"The AFA would roll back the alarming recent concentration of power in the White House and its end runs around due process... The AFA seeks to restore America's tradition of respect for the rule of law and the benefits of dispersed as opposed to concentrated power, to redeem the principle that no man is above the law, and to prevent injustices that undermine national security."

"We are conservative scholars, activists and writers. We do not favor a crippled executive or enfeebled government. In a time of danger, checks and balances make for stronger government because the people will more readily accept a muscular authority if barriers against abuses are strong. If at some future time Congress, in turn, aggrandizes power and invades the executive or judicial domains, we will be equally alert to sound the alarm. But today, the clear and present danger to conservative philosophy is the White House."

Click on article for comments:

Some insightful rantings and ravings from our good friend 'The Patriot' out in the wilds of Staten Island

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Domestic Disturbances

It looks like the story about the Bush Administration’s purge of local federal Attorney General offices has some legs after all. The House and Senate have both scheduled hearings for this week just as evidence surfaces that the removals were politically motivated after all. I also doubt its coincidence that the DOJ apparatchik responsible for the firings has just announced his resignation. As odious as the replacement of otherwise qualified AGs with Karl Rove’s golf buddies appears there is a more disturbing issue. Namely, from where is the President deriving his authority to stage his mini night of the long knives? Can you guess? Yes, it’s our old friend the Patriot Act. An article on Slate.com today asks the pertinent questions, “[w]ho changed the Patriot Act to make it easier to replace U.S. attorneys without oversight, and how did it happen with nobody looking?” As usual, the provision in the Act which granted the President power to replace U.S. Attorneys was designed to consolidate executive power and diminish the power of the other branches by removing both judicial and congressional oversight of interim U.S. attorney appointments and letting DOJ anoint them indefinitely. According to the Slate article, “[t]his served three important goals: consolidating presidential power, diminishing oversight, and ensuring that "interim" prosecutors had permanent jobs.” The President’s power to appoint these indefinite lackeys was written into the law when Congress reauthorized the Patriot Act last year. Senators on both sides of the isle have come up with increasingly lame excuses for why they rubber-stamped the President’s power grab. From Arlen Spector: “"The first I found out about the change in the Patriot Act occurred a few weeks ago when Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein approached me on the floor." From Chuck Schumer: [The Republicans] "slipped the new provision into the Patriot Act in the dead of night." So, the best our elected officials could come up with to explain their abdication of responsibility as a co-equal branch of the government is something along the lines of “I don’t know how it got there” and “I didn’t read it but voted for it anyway.” Well done ladies and gentlemen, well done.

The provision was actually introduced by the DOJ through a Rove operative named Michael O’Neill who joined Republican senator Arlen Spector’s staff right about the time he was being pilloried by the White House for being soft on supporting the President. (O’Neill also formerly clerked for Clarence Thomas) So Spector’s excuse is really that O'Neill had merely been following orders from the Department of Justice when he snuck new language into the Patriot Act that would consolidate executive branch authority without informing Spector about what he was doing. Or, as Slate put it, “either the DOJ snookered O'Neill, O'Neill snookered Specter, or Specter snookered his colleagues. But any way you slice it, the executive seems to have encroached on congressional turf in order to expand executive turf.”

The most disturbing but perhaps least surprising thing about this is that this administration is willing to subvert not just the Democrats but even Hill Republicans to push its agenda. I wonder what else was slipped into the Patriot act while Congress was sleeping?