The GOP: Victimized by Human Partial Brain Syndrome

Shireen of Democratic Underground asks on 6/26/09: WTF is wrong with Republicans? Where is their humanity? How could they be so devoid of empathy and compassion, and their duty to do what's right for the health of this country.

I'm sick to my stomach. Each of those rats needs to be kicked out during the next election. The most important qualification for holding public office is that they should be HUMAN BEINGS.


A very fair criterion, you'd think. But it's tough to be human when they're only given a sigmoid colon and a few other adjacent parts at birth, told to assemble them like pieces from some viscous erector set, then go out into the world and make the best of things.

Thing is, though, they started to self-identify as assholes around the Robber Baron days of the 1880s and the world's been a much lousier place because of it ever since.

For more than a century, the GOP has been proud to be the planet's largest hatchery for world-class assholes. And they've got plenty of company. They're very appealing to the tens of millions of natural born assholes who infest this country like nowhere else I've ever been.

You know that jerkoff down the road with the mullet and the truck and the Confederate battle flags? He's an asshole and he loves it when the GOPiggies screw the dems again and again. But only before he's had his daily 12-pack of Bud lite; he's a little too out of it to appreciate political infighting after a gallon or two of that undrinkable swill.

That prissy little fundie twerp who likes to fire up the leaf blower around 7:30 every Saturday morning? He's an asshole, too, and it makes him feel all chesty and tough and maaaaaaaanly when the GOP fucks the idiot dems over for the three millionth time this month. Same with the leaf blower; if he had the courage of the Cowardly Lion, he'd flip those hippies off now and then. But he's another in a long line of chicken hawks, so his best shot is pulling that starter rope and letting that two-stroke speak for him.

The bake sale queen who's half church lady and half mid-afternoon gin-swilling souse? She's an asshole of the first magnitude and she gets goosebumps whenever her GOP heroes nail those goddamn liberals and commie rat bastards and their free sex and abortions and they don't support our troops and damn that lefty bitch Pelosi and her liberal gay San Fran agenda that's going to ruin everything George W has done for this country.

So there's a few of them out there. Most aren't so obvious, but that's the genius of the true asshole. A smile, a welcoming hand, a couple of rounds at the lizard lounge, a generous and fun-loving all around great guy or gal. Right up til somebody mentions how the US medical system screwed them over and how single-payer is the way to go, and...

Oooops! That's all it took so send him screaming back to the AEI playbook.

How to minimize the influence these assholes have on our lives? We can't, unless we also eliminate the bribocracy that's been created to smooth and accelerate the process of turning this country from a democratic republic into a gigantic feudal manor. Just have a look at opensecrets.org for the awful, depressing truth.

And how to get things turned around? Public financing of campaigns. It all begins there.

Until we forcibly jerk their fat, bloated piggy snouts from the corporate trough and put them on a severe fiscal diet, they'll continue to represent their real employers in the corporate-run bribocracy and only pretend to represent you and me for a few months every election cycle. So there's a little work to be done. Fortunately, there are also identifiable milestones that turned this country into the shithole travesty it's become. Attacking them through those specific milestones is the way to go, imo.

First, get the 1886 Scotus ruling overturned -- the one that gave corporations "personhood," meaning all the rights and none of the responsibilities that accrue to actual human American citizens. Here's a nice synopsis:

An 1886 Supreme Court clerk's headnotes misreading (Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad) applied the 14th Amendment to corporations, extending to them all the rights, but none of the responsibilities, of human persons. The result has been the steady erosion of our democracy since then, and the consequent rise of the corporate state, which is primarily responsible for the military-corporate-media-academic complex, the expansion of the often brutal U.S. global empire (including the IMF, WTO, and World Bank) with its protecting militarism, and the destruction of our only planet's environment, all in the service of corporate capital's endless lust for power and profits. Corporate personhood is at the core of all of our problems. Ending it is the start of the way back to humane civilization.

- ED CIACCIO (RETIRED TEACHER/CURRENT ACTIVIST), Douglaston, NY

90 years later, the Burger court couldn't resist stepping up the pace at which the rich are destroying this country. So in 1976, ruling on a case called Buckley v. Valeo, they declared (in a split decision that included a famous dissent by Burger himself) that money equals free speech.

The court essentially said that, because these corporate persons don't have mouths or vocal chords and, therefore, lack the ability to talk in the standard sense, they needed a way to express their political opinions. Gawd only knows why, but that's what the court said.

And since corporations only speak the language of money, contributing to political candidates is their version of a soapbox and megaphone in the public square.

Here's a fairly good look at the case, the times that produced it, the court composition and, most importantly, the results over time. That ruling has to go, too.

Then, there's the so-called corporate death penalty, which involves revoking their corporate charters and essentially forcing them out of business. That's a huge subject and far too long for this already essay-like post, but there's lots of data on it and links to more info in this old post.

Meanwhile, you've got corporate mass media yammering at you 24/7 about the intrinsic wonderfulness of the greatest country ever in the history of the universe. This would be the same country in which well over 100 million people have to self-medicate each day just to handle all that rich American wonderfulness.

But they're members of the more perceptive group. The Pox Nous/CNN crowd -- the dummies and imbeciles who are spoon-fed an hour of utter corporate garbage each day and then dutifully swear they know everything of significance that occurred over the past 24 hours -- should be self-medicating rather than buying into this inane American creation myth belief system that tells them:

Taxes on the rich are killing our competitiveness. They hate us for our freedoms. This is the land of equal opportunity for all. Free trade is an economic godsend. Guns don't kill people. The US is a Christian country, founded on biblical principles.

The criminal justice system protects the powerless from the powerful. Elections aren't stolen in America. TV news tells the truth. America always acts internationally out of benign motives. The surge is working. Gay marriage is destroying the family. The war on terror is making us safer. The bible is the literal word of god. 9/11 was an OBL/Al Qaeda production and happened exactly as the official conspiracy theory says it did. Saddam helped finance OBL and 9/11.

The policeman is our friend. The liberal media is poisoning this country with secular humanist lies. Brown people are disposable. Global climate change is a leftist fantasy. Evolution is just another creation myth. Socialized medicine is evil. Capitalism lifts all boats. The rich are rich because they're morally and intellectually superior.

Just so...

Cognitive dissonance: It's not just for breakfast anymore.

This is a reply to a post on Democratic Underground that asked: "Do you realize that you are living in a Fascist Country?"

I responded:

New, improved: It's fascism with a smirk

BushCo and various compliant congresses, with both R and D majorities, have signed off on an ever-expanding list of repressive legislation, executive orders and presidential directives; massive federal invasions of privacy regarding medical and financial records; monitoring US citizens' electronic communications; re-targeting spy satellites for domestic surveillance; the TSA cavity search specialists (for attractive young women only; the rest are presumed to pose no threat to the state); no-fly and terrorist watch lists; Halliburton/KBR's detention camps; RFIDs in all new passports and the new national ID cards scheduled to be issued later this year; new TSA "behavior detection officers" to spot those who don't "look quite right;" all this wonderful new stuff from the DHS; private armies featuring mercenaries from companies like Blackwater and SAIC springing up like mushrooms after a light rain... All that and the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, extraordinary rendition (whatever the hell that means) and torture, too. (Note: the torture link is graphic and disgusting, as it should be.)

But most people would call you insane if you tried to connect these dots in a way that pointed toward governmental malevolence. Can't happen here, they say.

And because another poster in the same thread vehemently denied any hint of fascism in the current version of America, I couldn't keep my mouth (or keyboard) shut:

Cognitive dissonance: It's not just for breakfast anymore

Odd that you'd cite media obsession with the upcoming elections as evidence that we're just rolling in personal freedom. I'd argue that watching the media's evolving role in campaign and election coverage, and transcending neutrality by actually influencing the outcome, provides ample evidence of just the opposite. In maybe 50 years, they've completed the transition from reporters of objective fact to gatekeepers and promoters of official orthodoxy.

But even that wasn't enough to justify the huge sums of money corporate America has spent since 1996 to buy its own alternative universe. So in 2000 and 2004, they assumed a new activist role in determining the eventual "winner" by proclaiming a Bush victory out front; containing, suppressing or ridiculing all contrary information; then forcing the Gore camp to make its case with its credibility already undermined by the "infallibility" the public ascribes to the mighty media Wurlitzer. Goebbels and Bernays couldn't have done it any better.

The role of the "free press" as a check on the excesses of the rich and powerful -- which is what the founders had in mind when they ratified the First Amendment -- no longer exists except in small, local, independent papers, radio stations and community access TV.

Now, in its new role as champion of the status quo, PR firm for the aristocracy and official ministry of propaganda for the unholy marriage of right wing politicians and their corporate love-children, the "free press" is there at the outset of all major election campaigns to weed out any hint of progressive ideology, keep progressives muzzled and off camera and actively promote only the most vanilla, corporate-approved, useless degenerates of the bunch.

As you note, "In fascism, there is no debate about who the next leader will be." In sharp contrast, I suppose, to our free and open system in which all candidates enjoy public funding and equal media access and where mass media respects and accurately reports on every candidate's views on the issues.

One way to pick leaders in a fascist society is to physically, psychologically and spiritually intimidate people into accepting anyone who's shoved down their throats. Another is to limit their options to the finalists who represent the two factions of the Business Party. Just as in the other method, this keeps the status quo safe for another four years, this time by making sure there's only a superficial difference between the choices mass media has shoved down their throats. The outcome is the same; the second method is just slicker, less obviously totalitarian and doesn't tend to make people crazy, unproductive and useless as drones and debt slaves.

And if you actually believe that there's a lick of difference between Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain or Mr. Romney when it comes to their unwavering commitment to corporate values and steadfast opposition to anything that might benefit actual humans at the expense of corporate profits, then I've got to assume that history and cognition aren't your strong suits. You might care to have a look at opensecrets.org and follow the dollars for a while. Better yet, have a look at Hillary's idea of health care reform.

Like it or not, we no longer live in a democratic republic based on Constitutional law, the will of the people and 220 years of legal precedent. There is no due process; there is no habeas; there is no right to counsel; there is no right to privacy; there is no right to speak your mind; there is no prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; there is no right to a speedy trial by jury.

This is the reality of America v2.0. Just because the enforcers aren't wearing black uniforms decorated with swastikas and lightening bolts and goose-stepping down the Unter den Linden; just because Leni Reifenstahl's granddaughter isn't filming the sequel to "Triumph of the Will" and the boxcars are still carrying freight; just because oppression is still partly concealed under a peeling veneer of liberty while most people flatly refuse to pay any fucking attention at all... Just because the jackboot has yet to kick in my door, I'm not naive enough to believe that it can't happen here.

I look at the massive power the executive branch has accumulated since 2001 -- with the complete complicity of congress and an uncritical mass media -- and I can only draw one conclusion: all the pieces are in place to lock down this country like a time vault. They're just not fully operational yet.

Maybe they never will be, although the overlords have gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to build a legal and physical infrastructure that can really serve only one purpose. The Cheneys of the world don't strike me as the type to do stuff like this just for fun.

The Internet must die

"I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." — Dry-no-more-drunk George W. Bush, contemplating his next tall, cold Lone Star, October 8, 2004, St. Louis, Mo

You know that you've reached desperate times when you find yourself fondly remembering Tass and Pravda as beacons of journalistic integrity.

But when considering US corporate media's seven-year love affair with the Bush administration and its willingness to deliver blatant propaganda and outright lies to manufacture Bush-approved political orthodoxy, those former USSR institutions compare favorably with the shameless house organs now masquerading as an American free press.

The Internet's corporate competition: co-opted beyond redemption

Thanks to a 30-year frenzy of mergers and acquisitions, wink-and-nod FCC "oversight" and congressional unwillingness to invoke existing anti-trust laws, the American marketplace of ideas is now ruled by six massive conglomerates that control the content of more than 80 percent of what most of us see, hear and read.

So what? Well, for one thing, a significant majority of news, entertainment and information US audiences see is vetted for its support of status quo corporate values and purged of "dangerous" unconventional narratives -- perhaps regarding the threat to independent thought posed by media consolidation.

And when discussing media consolidation, someone might tumble to the fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world's largest armaments manufacturers in 2006 and among the six largest media conglomerates. GE makes and maintains engines for the F-16 Fighter jet, Abrams tank, Apache helicopter, U2 bomber, Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), A-10 aircraft and numerous other military equipment, including planes, helicopters, tanks and more.

Is it reasonable to expect NBC to report critically on the status and duration of the Iraq occupation? Or is it predictable that NBC's occupation coverage will tell us that the "surge" is working, that US troop deaths are down, that the Iraqi puppet regime is gaining traction and, if we can hang on for another decade, things should turn out hunky-dory.

Well, it's certain that extending the US presence in Iraq by a decade will have a very positive impact on GE's profit and loss statements. It's probably going to be somewhat less beneficial for the people who actually have to fight this insane proxy war on behalf of GE's bottom line.

But that's okay, since war is the optimum business condition for many industries -- banks, weapons makers, raw materials suppliers, machine tool makers and so on -- GE looks to sell many billions of dollars more of its killing machinery, all the while telling Americans via NBC how peace is just 10 or so years down the road.

And GE is just one of the main offenders. We'll leave for another day a discussion on how thoroughly Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has polluted the national discourse. Or how the acquisitive tentacles of Viacom, CBS, TimeWarner and Disney have managed to take a relatively engaged population and, in 30 short years, turn it into a nation of compliant, ill-informed, politically illiterate chowder heads content to consume their quota of goods, services and ideologies with an equally uncritical eye.

American mass media lost the thread of the story decades ago and are now only qualified to dish pop culture infotainment masquerading as news; report breathlessly on the latest D-class celebrity screw-up; and act as stenographers and cheerleaders for the latest batch of official Bush administration lies.

Among other insults, this explains why John Stossel is a network star while Bill Moyers is on PBS.

The parallel universe

The only serious competition threatening corporate media's monopoly on official "truths" -- those pieties designed to narrow acceptable choices and increase social control -- comes from the Internet.

"The news," as it's laughingly known, can tap into a seemingly endless supply of drunken or felonious fools like Jessica and Paris and OJ and Twitany to sedate its viewers. Then there's the occasional gruesome murder to balance the chirpy happy talk on miraculous medical procedures (which most of us will never live to experience because our for-profit insurers won't cover them), an always erroneous look at local weather, followed by 15 uplifting minutes on sports and a recap of the top celebrity screw-ups. The viewer yawns, feels a bit awed by all this technical wizardry and slick showmanship, and heads for bed thinking he's up to date on the stuff that really matters.

Corporate media has a bottomless pool of "on-air talent" -- perfectly coiffed, well-modulated, tastefully made up, arrayed in $5K worth of suits, ties and little flag lapel pins, strident and irritating as a hundred Ross Perots.

We have broadband, YouTube, blogs, forums, actual reporters, search engines, discussion groups, political organizing, access to newspapers published in actual free countries -- all taking place in plain sight.

Over the past decade Internet and Web technology have matured and surpassed nearly anything mass media can offer. It's instant news, usually with audio or video, often reported by eyewitnesses rather than filtered by some blow-dried idiot. It's preserving what's left of our national heritage by archiving "purged" documents. It's subjecting every significant political, social and economic development to the scrutiny and analysis of the world's collective brainpower. It's the unifying element linking diverse cultures into an evolving planetary society not subordinated to states or lines on a map. And it's the universe's greatest source of jokes, one-liners and satire.

Governments' worst nightmare: an informed and activist citizenry

I don't see how the power elites can afford to allow this nonsense to continue for much longer. People with unconventional (read: humanitarian or peaceful) ideas are the implacable enemy of those sustaining their wealth and power by aligning themselves with the status quo, and these dissenting Internet pipsqueaks cannot be tolerated forever.

To our corporate masters, libraries, independent publishers and bookstores are bad enough. But fortunately for "them," libraries are underfunded and ill-attended, it's getting harder to publish unorthodox material in the US and many independent book stores are getting killed by the Barnes & Nobles and Amazons of the world.

Not so the Internet. It's become the alternate universe for hundreds of millions of people worldwide who know and understand that the official story is always and inevitably suspect. That altruism has never been a function of governments. That governments are always at war with "the people" they pretend to watch out for. That, as The Commander Guy pointed out in a rare moment of clarity, dictatorships ARE easier to run than representative democracies. That power exists solely to perpetuate itself and, when threatened, will defend its position with anything and everything in the arsenal.

Now that's a hell of an alternate narrative. And the Internet is the "plumbing" that carries these contrarian messages -- and the seditious thoughts and attitudes and movements they inspire -- around the world in less time than it takes Murdoch to count his latest billion.

Death by harassment

In July of last year, Bush signed an executive order, entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq. This expanded the administration's flexible definition of a terrorist to include anyone disagreeing with its " . . . efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." This apparently isn't intended as a joke, although I'm not sure what's going on over there qualifies as "economic reconstruction" or "humanitarian assistance."

Which brings us to "Endgame," as the Department of Homeland Security calls HR 1955/S 1959, known officially as The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, and which contains -- among dozens of disgusting provisions -- these gems [italics mine]:

(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.

(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

Striking at the heart of the international terrorist conspiracy, this bill targets the dangerous arch-fiends/grandmothers who participate on the hundreds of thousands of political forums, blogs or news and information sites that aren't exclusively devoted to singing the praises of Bush/Cheney and their merry band of imperialist oil pirates.

Note that this piece of repressive legislation -- rumored to be the brainchild of the Rand Corporation and introduced by Democrat Jane Harman -- passed the House last October by a 404-6 margin. Note that, introduced last August in the upper house as S 1959 and co-sponsored by GOP armchair warrior and domestic repression enthusiast Norm Coleman, it's coming up for a vote in the Senate early this year. If it passes, which seems likely, a Bush signature is a given -- probably with a signing statement that says he'll ignore the act's few feeble provisions to combat totalitarianism, like this one:

(a) In General - The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Readers may want to take appropriate preemptive action before, say, downloading this article becomes a felony.

Another motive for digital murder

There's an interesting new site called "Wikileaks" that has garnered some recent attention from corporate mass media, notably Time Magazine, which notes that Wikileaks " . . . could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act." The site is intended as a secure repository where whistleblowers can, at minimal personal risk, post confidential, potentially embarrassing government and corporate documents for the entire online world to see, study and analyze.

Here's part of Wikileaks' mission statement:

We propose that authoritarian governments, oppressive institutions and corrupt corporations should be subject to the pressure, not merely of international diplomacy, freedom of information laws or even periodic elections, but of something far stronger — the consciences of the people within them.

We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies . . . We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly - in terms of human life and human rights. But with technological advances to the Internet and cryptography, the risks of conveying important information can be lowered.

Wikileaks opens leaked documents up to stronger scrutiny than any media organization or intelligence agency can provide. Wikileaks provides a forum for the entire global community to relentlessly examine any document for its credibility, plausibility, veracity and validity. Communities can interpret leaked documents and explain their relevance to the public. If a document comes from the Chinese government, the entire Chinese dissident community and diaspora can freely scrutinize and discuss it; if a document arrives from Iran, the entire Farsi community can analyze it and put it in context.

In an important sense, Wikileaks is the first intelligence agency of the people . . . its only interest is the revelation of the truth. Unlike the covert activities of state intelligence agencies, Wikileaks relies upon the power of overt fact to enable and empower citizens to bring feared and corrupt governments and corporations to justice.

Wikileaks is still months from going fully operational, but they've already put up quite a few leaked documents from all over the world. Here's one entitled "Fallujah, the information war and U.S. propaganda."

I suppose the whole thing could be a slick disinfo psy-op designed to leak phony documents to "non-embedded" reporters, then embarrass them publicly for printing anti-US propaganda attributed to some obscure left-radical loon or "terrorist."

But only a pure pessimist would think the Bush administration capable of such chicanery. On the contrary, they've amassed an impressive record of unstinting support for the organizing principles of this country . . . at least for those with the right pedigree who kick in a million bucks or so to the Republican National Committee each election cycle.

# # #

This article first appeared in Online Journal on January 14, 2008

9/11 and the incompetence excuse: Could a bunch of sociopathic screw-ups really pull off the crime of the century?

Many who deny government complicity in 9/11/01 maintain that some of the best evidence against official involvement in the crime of the century lies in the Bush administration's unbroken record of sheer incompetence, an argument bolstered by the perception that key members of the administration, notably The Commander Guy, spent that entire day running around like headless chickens.

On the contrary, they did no such thing. Rather, the administration was highly competent and enormously successful that day -- they just had different criteria for success than would sane people. And they've been highly competent ever since. You just have to adjust your standards for evaluating success, then view the past six years through the PNAC/neocon lens. Let's review some of their primary accomplishments -- on 9/11 and in the six eternal years since:

• They got the entire world to believe that a ragtag organization called Al Qaeda, fronted by a seriously ill guy in a cave armed with only a laptop and a phone, managed to orchestrate an unbelievably complex plan that had involved years of planning and training, much money, split-second timing and ridiculously good luck.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that four hijackers who couldn't fly single-engine Cessnas well enough to graduate from flight school suddenly became the Blue Angels when at the controls of large, twin-engine Boeing jetliners, and this during the most stressful moments of their short lives.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that the crime of the century was pulled off by 19 guys with box-cutters whose names (or any other Arabic names) don't appear on any passenger manifests and at least four of whom have been seen alive and well in the Middle East since 9/11/01, (this one even interviewed by the BBC).
  
  
• Better yet, they got the entire world to believe their evidence linking these 19 guys to the hijackings, using for proof a few cell phone calls that couldn't have happened with 2001 technology. Then there's the famous carry-on bag supposedly left behind by alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta containing, among other things, a copy of the Koran, a Boeing flight manual and his will (and that's surely something you'd take with you on a flight you knew was going to be vaporized). And then the kicker, a passport allegedly belonging to Atta that miraculously survived a massive explosion and temperatures we're told were high enough to soften steel and fluttered unsullied to the ground, where it was eventually found among the debris a couple of blocks away from what used to be the World Trade Center.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that the seriously ill guy in the cave had such vast control over US armed forces that he ordered four exercise scenarios -- Vigilant Warrior, Vigilant Guardian, Northern Guardian and Northern Vigilance -- which diverted to northern Canada or Alaska many of the NORAD fighter jets that would have been scrambled per standard operating procedure in the event of a suspected hijacking in the northeast corridor.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that this same guy in the cave was able to insert at least 11 and as many as 21 false radar blips (according to FAA administrator Jane Garvey) onto air traffic controller screens throughout the northeast corridor. As a result, controllers had no idea which blips represented planes that had been hijacked, which ones represented non-hijacked flights still in the air and which blips were phantoms. They were thus incapable of following the actual moves of the four hijacked jets and/or coordinating with the FAA to relay warnings to NORAD interceptors (most of which, again, were screwing around over the arctic wastes).
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that the remaining NORAD forces -- which had been a perfect 67 for 67 in 2001 prior to 9/11 -- managed to fail completely in their missions four separate times that morning.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that it was only a coincidence that a fifth exercise was taking place at the same time, this one designed to test emergency response capabilities at the National Reconnaissance Office in the event that an off-course plane from nearby Dulles airport crashed into one of the NRO's four office towers.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe that two planes took down three skyscrapers, WTC buildings 1, 2 and 7, and that for the first and only time in history, fire brought down reinforced steel and concrete structures and caused them to collapse vertically rather than keel over sideways and take out a few blocks of the New York City financial district.
  
  
• They got the entire world to absolve them of any complicity in "the events of 9/11," even though the above list of "coincidences" is inexplicable without the knowledge, involvement, approval and direction of people high up in the federal food chain.

And that was only the beginning . . .

• Literally overnight, they and their mass media cheerleaders turned a quasi-literate simpleton who was already tanking in the polls into an heroic "war president" who enjoyed the approval of more than 90 percent of the American public and the support of just about the entire world community.
  
  
• Suggesting the presence of a script, the administration immediately used this new-found popularity to get the public to buy insane increases in Pentagon spending; invented a war on terror to further justify enriching cronies at banks, arms merchants and fossil fuels companies; and attacked Afghanistan, murdering tens of thousands of civilians but failing to find that omnipotent guy in the cave.
  
  
• They got the entire world to believe Condi Rice when she perjured herself at the 9/11 Commission hearings by saying, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
  
  
• They got the entire world to forget that at least 11 countries had issued warnings of an imminent attack against the US: Afghanistan, Argentina, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Russia and the UK.
  
  
• They got the entire world to forget that Bush slept on a US Navy ship in Genoa Harbor during the July 2001 G8 meeting because Italian intelligence services had intercepted communications indicating terrorists might try to use a hijacked plane to assassinate him by ramming it into his hotel.
  
  
• They got the whole world to forget about Operation Bojinka, a plot to hijack and blow up 11 flights from Asia to North America, which the CIA had rolled up back in the mid-'90s and which should have provided some hints of future activities.

And ever since, it's been the express train to hell for the US and the rest of the world. Anything's fair in the phony war on terror that 9/11 launched and sanctified.

It justifies preemptive civilian slaughter branded as "shock and awe;" blatantly looting the national historical treasures of a sovereign nation; commandeering its oil reserves for the exclusive profit of US and UK petrochemical companies; building forward bases from which to rule the Middle East militarily; privatizing everything that isn't nailed down; threatening or ridiculing any national leader who dares to differ with US hegemony; threatening Iran with nuclear weapons; the use of illegal torture to compel confessions (which are, of course, useless since they're obtained under duress) . . . all this and more cementing the US's richly deserved place as the world's most feared and despised rogue state. And that's just the foreign policy side.

Meanwhile, back at home . . .

Domestically, the official 9/11 story has justified an ever-expanding list of repressive legislation, executive orders and presidential directives; massive federal invasions of privacy regarding medical and financial records; obsessive monitoring of US citizens' electronic communications; re-targeting spy satellites for domestic surveillance; the TSA cavity search specialists (for attractive young women only; the rest are presumed to pose no threat to the state); no-fly and terrorist watch lists; Halliburton/KBR's detention camps; RFIDs in all new passports and the new national ID cards scheduled to be issued later this year; new TSA "behavior detection officers" to spot those who don't "look quite right;" all this wonderful new stuff from the DHS; private armies featuring mercenaries from companies like Blackwater and SAIC springing up like mushrooms after a light rain... All that and the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, extraordinary rendition (whatever that actually means) and torture, too. (Note: the torture link is graphic and disgusting.)

Thanks to "the events of 9/11," we no longer live in a democratic republic based on constitutional law and 220 years of legal precedent. There is no due process; there is no habeas corpus; there is no right to counsel; there is no right to privacy; there is no right to speak one's mind; there is no prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment; there is no right to a speedy trial by jury.

This is the reality of America v2.0 post-9/11. Just because they're not wearing black uniforms decorated with swastikas and lightening bolts and goose-stepping down the Unter den Linden; just because Leni Reifenstahl isn't filming the sequel to "Triumph of the Will" and the boxcars are still carrying freight; just because oppression is still partly concealed under an eroding veneer of liberty while most people flatly refuse to pay any attention . . . Just because the jackboot has yet to kick in the door, we're not naive enough to believe that it can't happen here.

We look at stuff like this and can only draw one conclusion: All the pieces are in place to lock down this country like a time vault. They simply haven't gone fully operational yet.

There are dozens -- probably hundreds -- of additional outrages that have been justified by "the events of 9/11." The official 9/11 story is the lynchpin, the keystone, the catalyst for every single act of international aggression and domestic repression this administration has been able to get away with. Absent 9/11, or at least the official Bush administration version, they don't have a leg to stand on. Demolish the official coincidence theory and their entire rationale crumbles.

A united front

That's why attacking, discrediting and ultimately disproving the 9/11 myth is so critical to the continued survival of the republic. Even Ms. Nancy might find grounds to allow impeachment back on that infamous table once the 9/11 armor rusts away.

Ironically, instead of presenting a unified front to expose this preposterous lie and condemn the complicit US mass media echo chamber that has hard-wired it into the American psyche, the left/liberal end of the political spectrum is predictably fragmented on this issue and includes some of the more steadfast and adamant defenders of the official coincidence theory.

So when we see otherwise intelligent and perceptive people doing the administration's PR work for them, defending the official story with the tenacity of the religious zealot, we have to wonder at the level of internal conflict these people must experience in accepting this ridiculous official story at face value.

But fear is a powerful thing and shilling for the official 9/11 cover story -- while staunchly ignoring the most basic unanswered questions and obvious inconsistencies -- provides insulation against the cognitive dissonance and bottomless cynicism that would result from admitting that this administration is so utterly malevolent that it would plan and execute mass murder against its own citizens for purely political reasons.

There's always Operation Northwoods to provide a bit of historical perspective on governmental malevolence. Even US mass media managed to pick up on that one. Read it before it gets scrubbed.

# # #

This article first appeared in Online Journal on January 9, 2008

Impeachment Souffle: Still off the table?

Although key to a balanced diet, House keeps impeachment off the menu

"…impeachment was something that we could not be successful with, and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and [Republican] short-comings. The president isn't worth it. He's not worth impeaching. We've got important work to do." Asked whether the Constitution is worth it, she replied, "Well, yeah, the Constitution is worth it if you can succeed."

-- Nancy Pelosi, from a 7/5/07 article by David Lindorff

The usual excuses
So much for that silly oath of office, eh Nancy? Last anyone heard, Ms. Nancy and Uncle Harry were so busy saving America through the really important legislative work they've been doing – indiscernible though it may be to the naked eye – that impeachment has had to remain on the sideboard and off the table, slowly congealing under one of those clear plastic cake covers.


As they tell us, there's no time for impeachment because it would detract from their laser-like focus on doing the people's business. Which, translated into our native tongue, is a frank admission that Congress can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Then there's the "we don't have the votes" excuse. Keep in mind that this administration has never been called out on TV (which remains the sole or primary source of "news" for 92 percent of Americans) for its corruption, criminality, cronyism, unconstitutional power grabs, and commission of everything from the customary outrage du jour to high treason.

I have a feeling that if the American people were actually allowed to hear even a partial list of the outrages perpetrated in their names and with their tax dollars, the votes to convict would miraculously show up in the form of ass-chewed Senators whose constituents have told them to vote for conviction or look for another job next election.

My personal favorite is pleading with the more furious among us to give the investigations time to work. Never mind that subpoenas are routinely ignored, testimony is laughably incoherent, administration insiders routinely lie even on the rare occasions when they're placed under oath – and there are no consequences for any of this.

But rather than admitting they're not up to the job, we're told that these spineless incompetents in the House and Senate Judiciary committees – who managed to bungle a prima facie case for treason against at least three of these vampires, then have the nerve to wring their hands in anguished futility over those shockingly uncooperative BushCo meanies – are just keeping their powder dry for the coming showdown.

Which I suppose means High Noon on Pennsylvania Avenue is on the way, in which leading Democrats will, as is their custom, bring Neolithic tools to counter BushCo's M-4s and mobile rocket launchers.


Unacceptable but unaccountable
Meanwhile, the outrages keep on coming: impeachable offenses keep piling up; the latest figures report that our liberating presence in Iraq has murdered more than a million civilians and created between two and four million refugees; Iran is the next jewel in the PNAC's crown; Syria is in line for an oratorical upgrade in BushCo's demonization campaign; domestic repression is edging its way toward the golden age of Stalinism; and Cheney may have just become the world's newest nuclear power (Minot AFB; six cruise missiles; background here: missing nukes).

So don't buy the lies. Impeachment is the only effective way to curb this insane rush to bring about The Rapture. And despite the bleatings from the Democratic leadership, there are at least five really good reasons to impeach Bush and Cheney right now, along with the rest of this hideous administration:

1 Simple justice says they must be held accountable for their crimes, and punished to the full extent of the law.

2 Their totalitarian agenda must be exposed so that the American people understand the magnitude of their unprecedented criminality.

3 Somebody has to put a stop to their murderous agenda before they can nuke Iran or shed any more blood in Iraq or Afghanistan.

4 They must serve as an example of what will happen to the next right wing cabal if it tries to replace representative democracy with fascism.

5 Then there’s impeachment as the last means of self-defense. It’s getting a bit urgent, and all the pieces are in place to install a pure fascist dictatorship.


The Commander Guy: lord of all he surveys
Below are links to three presidential directives that the usually vigilant corporate media managed to miss, excerpts from particularly odious provisions within each of them, and articles or blog postings explaining their significance.

This is the most recent, signed July 17, 07, and sanctions property and liquid asset seizure for pretty much anyone BushCo deems a pain in the ass. Here's the text of the directive:

How to legally steal your stuff

Here's three particularly awful parts:

(c) "…the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States."

(B) "…undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people."

Sec. 5. "I (therefore) determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order."

And here’s comment on what this actually means in real life:

Outlawing the anti-war movement

The following is a link to two earlier directives, signed May 9, 07, both of which provide the framework and excuses for implementing martial law (which is what declaring a national state of emergency means to these swine). Note that Bush is to be the sole guarantor of the continuance of Constitutional law under these conditions, and that he’s the only one who gets to define what constitutes grounds for declaring a state of emergency.

Lock up the usual suspects

A couple of looks behind the curtain:

(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;“ (NOTE: which means Katrina II, a California quake, a flood in the Midwest, a massive power outage, etc.)

(18) "The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.” (NOTE: The shadow government stays in the loop.)

(6) "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.” (NOTE: This is in recognition of Bush's well-documented veneration for Constitutional law.)

Comment on this blueprint for totalitarianism includes this article detailing the rise of fascism under Bush:

Imperialism and fascism are on the rise in the USA

This one is specific to the DHS and National Security directives:

Bush anoints himself ensurer of Constitutional government in emergency

This one deals with fabricated "false flag" attacks ascribed to "terrorists" (more on that below) as a pretext for nuking Iran:

Bush directive for a "catastrophic emergency" in America: Building a justification for waging war on Iran?

So we’ve already seen that the events that would trigger these security state actions are pretty arbitrary, and are defined by Little Lord Hissyfit himself. Meanwhile, there has been a great deal of “buzz” about upcoming terrorist activities against “the homeland.” Predictably, our free press is all over this one, since it gives them yet another opportunity to wave their pompoms and cheer on the Bush Death Machine.

DHS head Michael Chertoff spoke of his “gut” feelings about an impending attack recently (although most attributed his stomach pangs to a pastrami and Swiss sandwich of questionable vintage). Here’s Keith Olbermann’s take on Chertoff’s intestines:

Al Qaeda in Michael Chertoff's Stomach: The Terror of a "Gut Feeling"

However, unlike Chertoff, whose resume includes his utter uselessness during the Katrina aftermath, this guy might be worth paying attention to. A former Reagan administration insider credited, so to speak, with the invention of “Reaganomics,” author and national syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts is no flaming lefty propagandist. And if he’s concerned, we should be as well.

My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experience


About those false flag ops
A “false flag” operation is an extreme act of governmental propaganda that can consist of mass violence like 9/11, or a manufactured incident – such as the Gulf of Tonkin "attack" – perpetrated by elements in the US security apparatus and blamed on the contemporary US whipping boy and his shadowy band of swarthy evil doers.

So on 9/11 Osama was immediately identified as the chief perp -- although the entire 9/11 myth is seen in more enlightened and informed parts of the world as simply a crude ploy and convenient fairy tale to enable BushCo's resource and power grabs. And that Gulf of Tonkin incident blamed on the North Vietnamese leadership? History now tells us it never happened.

The intent of false flag operations is to manufacture consent for the next governmental outrage -- like bombing Afghan or Vietnamese civilians -- further demonize the designated bad guys, scare the hell out of the public, encourage rabid unquestioning patriotism and provide popular support for actions alleged necessary to prevent similar atrocities in the future -- which generally means a military attack on the usual disposable brown people, public acceptance of things like torture and "extraordinary renditions," along with suppression of political dissidents at home. Roberts says this about the possibility of BushCo pulling off another one of these false flag black ops:

“Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.”

In the case of the 9/11 “attacks,” reprisals included invading Afghanistan and Iraq, occupying both, causing massive civilian casualties and incidentally providing the muscle for the US to deploy a huge, permanent military presence in the heart of oil country.

And US citizens got their own reprisals: Patriot Acts I and II, the Military Commissions Act, dozens of "signing statements" Bush uses to ignore any parts of legislation he doesn't feel like complying with, the recent executive orders detailed above, NSA spying, FBI spying, the TIPS program which seeks to deputize at least five million domestic snitches to do the NSA's dirty work for them… All kinds of stuff that so enthralls and delights the Third Reich leadership that they're doing the wave in their particularly warm corner of hell.

So… still think impeachment isn’t appropriate? Martial law, asset seizures, unending proxy wars for the benefit the petroleum industry, oceans of civilian blood flooding the Middle East, ever-increasing war budgets designed to enrich arms manufacturers while stealing money to fund what remains of the New Deal, the end of the great democratic republic experiment, terror terror all the time...

“It Can’t Happen Here,” as Sinclair Lewis titled his novel that demonstrates the exact opposite, and chronicles a rapid US devolution from representative democracy to fascist dictatorship.


Dancing to the PNAC tune
Oh, sure it can. In fact, the whole thing is spelled out in the right wing think tank Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 manifesto called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." You can download it as a PDF file by clicking here. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll find the link to the report.

Before you read it, it might be interesting to look at the signatories at the end of the document. You'll recognize quite a few names, such as Stephen Cambone, Robert, Fred and Donald Kagan, the ubiquitous William Kristol, "Scooter" Libby and Paul Wolfowitz.

PNCA members past and present who didn't sign that study but who pop up elsewhere in various propaganda pieces include: Elliott Abrams, Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Gary Bauer, Bill (morality czar) Bennett, William F. Buckley, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Steve Forbes, Frank Gaffney, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, Barry McCaffrey, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle (for comic relief?), Zalmay Khalilzad (former ambassador to Iraq and now to the UN), Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Weyrich, James Woolsey and Dov Zacheim (credited with losing about $1.3 trillion while comptroller at the Pentagon).

The deep thinkers on these lists, judged solely by the massive death and destruction their actions have visited on the planet over the decades, are indictable as war criminals by the International Court at The Hague.

Taken together, they seem to comprise the advance force for malevolent invaders from some distant planet, coming soon to eliminate all disposable brown and black people (ongoing), demolish all interdependent ecosystems (with gusto), plunder poor countries for raw materials (check), create history's most overdrawn debtor nation (check), harness invisible rays to destroy the critical thinking capacities of Americans (see talk radio), use TeeVee to keep Americans focused on celebrity worship and sex scandals (check) and enslave the latest endangered species, the middle class, through debt and job insecurity (check).

In other words, sow the seeds for an Orwellian world based on constant war, official lies that must be believed, flexible revisionist history, the requirement for strict doctrinal and ideological conformity, banning of books, sexual repression, public displays of universal hatred for a designated demon, domestic spying as a given, super-patriotism as social control mechanism -- and the ever-present threat of a trip to Room 101, where the harshest punishments imaginable are reserved for dissenters or those engaging in "anti-social" behavior.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Just give these maniacs time to put a few more minor pieces in place and we'll suddenly find our thoughts enclosed by virtual razor wire, our savings donated to the GOP, our houses sold to pay for the voracious war machine, our jobs exported, our families broken up -- and Orwell's vision finally realized: As O'Brien says to Winston Smith, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

Then imagine your face under some BushCo fascist thug's boot. Think maybe it's time to fight back?

# # #

A blast from the past

A little background...

With the Iraq disaster bankrupting the country, both morally and financially, and Iran next in line for a little tough love, it might be a good idea to revisit how in hell this country got started on this path to unapologetic imperialism, naked resource grabs, the PNAC ideal of "full-spectrum dominance," the fear and loathing of much of the planet and the gradual devolution of George W. Bush from useless blithering idiot to soul-shriveled, blood-drenched sociopath.

Below is an article I wrote in the week after 9/11/01, in which I attempted to point out the similarities between selling a product and selling a war. As I watched the lies and phony rationales unravel during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and cringe as the very same set of unsubstantiated accusations are now hurled at Iran, it seemed a good time to revisit the influences of salesmanship and marketing on a population already pre-conditioned to accept the outrageous claims of advertising and, rather than apply critical thinking skills to the issue, respond by simply buying the product.

And because consumerism is its own reward, the cycle repeats for every single "hot" new product for which advertisers can create buzz, resulting in the itch to buy and then scratching that itch with a trip to Walmart. Return home, fondle the new gizmo for awhile, turn on the TV, watch more embarrassingly childish advertising, develop a new itch and so forth. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

So, without further babbling, here's a little trip down memory lane.


September 17, 2001


War on Sale: Buy Now while Supplies Last

By Warren Pease

The public is galvanized as if Hitler and Tojo had returned from hell to finish the job of pulverizing America and installing a fascist state fronted by the Japanese emperor. Polls show nearly universal sentiment to kick ass and take names – and the names don’t really matter. We’ll lash out at any wog in a pinch, even the guy we bought fresh fruit from two weeks ago at the corner market. There’s blood lust in the land and it must be satisfied.

Which is hardly surprising. We live in a country in which our primary duty is stoking the engines of commerce by consuming the fad du jour as defined by pop culture and branded by TV advertising. So when the major cable and broadcast networks run 24/7 advertising for a single product – in this case, a US war against Islamic radicals – it shouldn’t be too shocking that more than 90 percent of American consumers respond with wild approval.

In the hours and days immediately following the atrocities of September 11, Americans were subjected to what amounts to an endless branding campaign, featuring some of the most powerful images ever seen on television. Relentless, sustained, moving and graphic, television pounded home the message that America had been horribly violated and that it must exact revenge. Within hours, a suspect was named and a strategy articulated.

Using a strategy from Marketing 101, the networks first defined the problem and then sold the solution. The problem was international terrorism, personified by Osama bin Laden and his shadowy band of Islamic fundamentalists, and the only solution proposed – at least the only one not immediately dismissed as quixotic or unworkable – was massive military response.

By defining the solution along such a narrow continuum, network advertising virtually assured that Americans would buy the Bush administration’s product. Throw in the testosterone quotient – manly American men doing manly things to unmanly swarthy cowards in far away places we can't identify on a map – and the administration had a real hit on its hands.


War or widgets: creating the buzz

But simply substitute "widgets" for "war" and see what happens. Beginning at 9:00 A.M. EDT on September 11, manufacturing giant Glutco Inc., the company that manufacturers and distributes the world’s most sought-after widgets, launched a non-stop advertising campaign on all major television networks. Within hours, imbued with THE MESSAGE, Americans roared their approval, left their jobs and homes and drove directly to the nearest widget outlet. They didn’t need proof that Glutco’s widgets were superior; most of them didn’t even want or need widgets. But the clarion call of mass marketing won’t be ignored.

Shelves emptied in minutes; trucks lined up at the loading docks to deliver more widgets; those also sold out. Even though the campaign had been planned for months, mighty Glutco’s distribution system was unable to keep pace with demand. Americans simply couldn’t get enough widgets. Special edition widgets showed up on eBay at preposterous prices, then were bid up several times over. Widget collectors found themselves in demand as instant celebrities, being asked weighty questions on national television by a fawning media.

Daily newspapers and weekly magazines kept the public salivating. Publishers happily saw their pages eaten up by lucrative, image-intensive Glutco advertising. Entertainment trade rags reported a series of made-for-TV movies in the works; marginal actors and off-key singers kept themselves in the public eye for another few weeks by shilling for Glutco widgets; even Glutco’s chief competitors expressed reluctant admiration for their adversary, since the heightened popularity of widgets had expanded the market for their products as well.

True, the campaign was the most expensive marketing exercise in history, but it really wasn’t much of a gamble. After all, if American adults will fight over the last Cabbage Patch doll, even though the Cabbage Patch brand was sold primarily to kids through Saturday morning cartoons, it was reasonably predictable that they’d respond with unprecedented fervor to a non-stop harangue by analysts and experts, blow-dried anchors and "on the ground" reporters. Even with the sound off, the images were just too compelling to ignore.

And the numbers proved the hypothesis. Consumers bought $40 billion worth of widgets in the first week alone. Many ran their credit cards up to the limit and many more said they’d make any sacrifice to buy more widgets in the coming months. They took second mortgages on their houses; they spent their kid’s college funds; they looted their retirement accounts; those with disposable income bought bigger SUVs to carry more widgets. And Glutco’s major shareholders smiled the satisfied smirk of the seriously rich.

And so it goes in pop culture America, where the invisible hand of the market occasionally pops into public view -- whether shilling for widgets or war -- where allegiance is bought and sold like a used car, and where operators are always standing by.



A version of this article appeared at bushandcheneysuck.com in mid-September, 2001.

Here's what I think...

Just to start things off, I'll give you an overview of what I see as a few current critical issues, with links and comment throughout.

Things are lively but inconclusive and frustrating on the impeachment front. And as usual, Nancy Pelosi is spouting more apologist nonsense, this time with a whole new talking point about how the party could become fragmented over impeachment and, as a result, fail to win super-majorities in 2008.

That's nice, Nancy, but please don't expect me to buy into yet another clichéd argument on the heels of such brilliant ones as: He's going to be gone anyway so why bother (even though a couple of recent presidential directives [not subject to congressional vote or review] set the stage for martial law and cancellation of the '08 elections, along with the seizure of assets of anyone disagreeing with BushCo's Iraq policies, assuming any exist).

Or how impeachment wouldn't leave enough time to do the peoples' business (even though impeachment is the ONLY valid way to serve the people right now, unless bombing and possibly nuking Iran, continuing the Iraq genocide, and escalating domestic repression and voiding the Constitution are now regarded as great ideas by our slack-jawed, Fox-poisoned idiot citizenry).

Or how we should give the investigations time to work, even though BushCo simply laughs at the subpoenas and orders his subordinates not to honor them -- for which he should be indicted for obstruction of justice, yet another impeachable offense that carries serious criminal penalties unless you're a republican named Scooter Libby -- or any other republican, for that matter.

There are at least four really good reasons to impeach Bush and Cheney right now, along with the rest of this hideous administration:

1 Simple justice says they must be held accountable for their crimes, and punished to the full extent of the law.

2 Their totalitarian agenda must be exposed so that the American people understand the magnitude of their unprecedented criminality.

3 Somebody has to put a stop to their murderous agenda before they can nuke Iran or shed any more blood in Iraq or Afghanistan.

4 They must serve as an example of what will happen to the next right wing cabal if it tries to replace representative democracy with fascism.

And then there’s impeachment as the last means of self-defense. It’s getting a bit urgent, and all the pieces are in place to install a pure fascist dictatorship. Below are links to the presidential directives mentioned above, an excerpt from a particularly odious provision within each of them, and articles or blog postings explaining their significance.

This is the most recent, and sanctions property and liquid asset seizure for pretty much anyone BushCo deems a pain in the ass. Here's the text of the directive:

How to legally steal your stuff

Here's a particularly awful part:

"(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States. (NOTE: Corporations aren’t exempt, unless they’ve recently donated large sums to GOP campaigns,)

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people; (NOTE: this means anyone at all who's pissing them off, including anti-war protesters and those who donate to leftist political organizations)

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order." (NOTE: which means they snatch your stuff and you don't know about it until, say, you stick your card in the ATM and find you have zero balance)

And here’s comment on what this actually means in real life:

Outlawing the anti-war movement


The following is a link to two earlier directives, signed May 9, 07, both of which provide the framework and excuses for implementing martial law (which is what declaring a national state of emergency means to these swine). Note that Bush is to be the sole guarantor of the continuance of Constitutional law under these conditions, and that he’s the only one who gets to define what constitutes grounds for declaring a state of emergency.

Lock up the usual suspects

A couple of looks behind the curtain:

“(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;“ (NOTE: which means Katrina, a Calif. quake, a flood in the Midwest, a massive power outage, etc. could all trigger the marvelous plans that comprise most of the rest of the directive.)

“(18) The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.” (NOTE: This would be making sure the usual shadow government entities have uninterrupted access to Il Duce and his puppet masters in the secure white house.)

“(6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.” (NOTE: You may have noticed BushCo’s ongoing respect for Constitutional law, and may assume that such respect will continue after the dictatorship is in place.)

Comment on this blueprint for totalitarianism includes this article detailing the rise of fascism under Bush:

Imperialism and fascism are on the rise in the USA

This one is specific to the DHS and National Security directives:

Bush anoints himself ensurer of Constitutional government in emergency

And this one is the best of the bunch and deals with fabricated “terrorist” attacks (more on that below) as pretext for nuking Iran:

Bush directive for a "catastrophic emergency" in America: Building a justification for waging war on Iran?


So we’ve already seen that the events that would trigger these security state actions are pretty arbitrary, and are defined by Little Lord Hissyfit himself. Meanwhile, there has been a great deal of “buzz” about upcoming terrorist activities against “the homeland.” Predictably, our free press is all over this one, since it gives them yet another opportunity to wave their pompoms and cheer on the Bush Death Machine.

DHS head Michael Chertoff spoke of his “gut” feelings about an impending attack last week (although most attributed it to a pastrami and swiss sandwich of questionable vintage). Here’s Keith Olbermann’s take on Chertoff’s intestines:

Al Qaeda in Michael Chertoff's Stomach: The Terror of a "Gut Feeling"

However, unlike Chertoff, whose resume includes his utter uselessness during the Katrina aftermath, this guy might be worth paying attention to. A former Reagan administration insider credited (?) with the invention of “Reaganomics,” author and national syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts is no flaming lefty propagandist. And if he’s concerned, then so am I.

My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experience

A “false flag” operation is an extreme act of governmental propaganda that can consist of mass violence like 9/11, or a manufactured incident – such as the Gulf of Tonkin "attack" – perpetrated by elements in the US security apparatus and blamed on the contemporary US whipping boy and his shadowy band of swarthy evil doers. So Osama was immediately identified as the chief 9/11 perp -- although the entire 9/11 myth is seen by most of the world as a convenient fairy tale to enable BushCo's resource and power grabs, while the North Vietnamese leadership was blamed for the Gulf of Tonkin incident -- which history now tells us never happened.

The intent is to create consent for the next governmental outrage du jour -- like bombing Afghan or Vietnamese civilians -- further demonize the designated bad guys, scare the hell out of the public, encourage rabid unquestioning patriotism, and provide popular support for actions alleged necessary to prevent similar atrocities in the future -- which generally means a military attack on the usual disposable brown people, along with suppression of dissidents at home. Roberts says this about the possibility of BushCo pulling off another one of these false flag black ops:

“Alternatively, false flag “terrorist” strikes could be orchestrated in the US. The Bush administration has already infiltrated some dissident groups and encouraged them to participate in terrorist talk, for which they were arrested. It is possible that the administration could provoke some groups to actual acts of violence.”

In the case of the 9/11 “attacks,” reprisals included invading Afghanistan and Iraq, occupying both, causing massive civilian casualties and incidentally providing the muscle for the US to deploy a huge, permanent military presence in the heart of oil country.

So… still think impeachment isn’t appropriate? Martial law, end of the great democratic republic experiment, asset seizures, terror terror all the time everywhere...

“It Can’t Happen Here,” as Sinclair Lewis titled his novel that demonstrates the opposite, and chronicles the rapid US devolution from representative democracy to fascist dictatorship.

Oh sure it can. In fact, the whole thing is spelled out in the right wing think tank Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 manifesto called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century." You can download it as a pdf file by clicking on that link. Before you read it, it might be interesting to look at the signatories at the back of the document. You'll recognize quite a few names.

So just give these maniacs time to put a few more minor pieces in place and we'll suddenly find our thoughts enclosed by virtual razor wire, our savings donated to the GOP, our houses sold to pay for the voracious war machine, our jobs exported, our families broken up -- and Orwell's vision will finally be realized: As O'Brien says to Winston Smith near the end of 1984, "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

Then imagine your face and some BushCo fascist thug's boot. Think maybe it's time to fight back?

wp