It is high time for all the partisan enablers of the two-party duopoly to admit their culpability in fostering and supporting the current state of fascism we now serve under via the oligarchic regimes you have voted for.
Now that the concept of a "New World Order," introduced by George H.W. Bush, has gone mainstream, dismissing the dangers of intrusive laws and loss of liberty as the claims of alarmists, conspiracy theorists, and right-/left-wing extremists no longer flies. Legislation has been passed and new legislation continues to be proposed that impacts the rights of Americans to the degree that they forever change our governance from one of a constitutional republic to one of collectivist democracy.
The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence & Analysis issued a "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" reference aid this week. On the heels of its most recent such reference aid, which named American military veterans returning from Iraq as possible extremists domestic terrorists, the DHS's attempt at inclusiveness seems to know no bounds. It is worth emphasizing that the document specifically identifies "non-Islamic extremism" as a threat to the United States. So now if you are pro-environment, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-black, pro-Jew, pro-white, anti-16th Amendment, anti-tax and, even pro-animal rights you might very well be a domestic terrorist. The document even names "alternative media" in its lexicon of domestic terrorism.
While the DHS has since rescinded the product and claimed it was not authorized, the proverbial horse is out of the barn, to borrow a recently used phrase from the president. Can there be any more evidence that the Department of Homeland Security, authorized by the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act (which was not read by the very legislators who voted for its passing), should be dismantled and moved to the dustbin of history? The "reference aid" provides an eerie insight into the agenda of a continually overreaching and apparently overconfident federal bureaucracy that continues to perpetuate the myth that we the people serve the government. The DHS document is the origin of a "thought police" handbook for the feds and illustrates the intent of the department to label Americans as terrorists if they have thoughts, publish opinions, and pursue actions that are contrary to the Nanny State and promote non-subservience to the government.
The document attempts to paint any of the various special-interest or special-issue factions as violent and criminal. For instance if you are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration, you may be plotting violent or criminal acts ... and thus you might be a domestic terrorist.
Below are some excerpts from the "lexicon," a copy of which can be found here.
(Note: "U//FOUO" means "Unclassified, For Official Use Only.")
"This product provides definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States.
"• alternative media (U//FOUO): a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.
"• decentralized terrorist movement (U//FOUO): a movement of groups or individuals who pursue shared ideological goals through tactics of leaderless resistance independent of any larger terrorist organization.
"• direct action (U//FOUO): lawful or unlawful acts of civil disobedience ranging from protests to property destruction or acts of violence."
Apparently, lawful acts of civil disobedience including protesting are going to make one a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the DHS. And if you are "leaderless" in your "resistance," you might be a terrorist. This only begs the question: "Resistance to what?" And of course, there are those damned alternative media outlets that provide a forum (gasp) for interpretations that differ from mass-media products.
The most chilling aspect of this affair is that the person responsible for issuing this document, Roger Mackin, has been shifted from the DHS to the cybersecurity section at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
When it comes to the latest hot topics of the day, one will not learn anything new by watching the talking heads on cable news or the networks. Fortunately, technology has come a long way, and all one has to do is browse the Web for perspectives and information that will most certainly raise the bar on the water-cooler dialogue at the office.
To that end, you will find ready-to-go video clips about the following stories that you won't find anywhere else:
April 15 Tea Parties
The Quad Cities hosted two Tea Party protests on the infamous Income Tax Day. More than 500 people attended the Davenport protest, and more than 300 people assembled that afternoon in Moline. The Reader was at both events and has posted a nine-minute video segment that includes interviews with seven people, including an 11-year-old.
The mainstream media picked up on the Tea Parties as a simple way to continue polarizing the masses along strict left/right and us/them party lines. No single outlet could help itself. As a guest on Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC, Janeane Garofalo described the protest attendees as the "Klan demographic" and "tea-bagging racists who hate having a black man in office." To which Olbermann rhetorically asked, "What happens if at one of these things somebody hurts somebody?" And Fox Noise talk-show host Sean Hannity picked up the banner of the downtrodden tax payer and promoted the Tea Parties as if he had some solidarity with any disenfranchised citizens other than staunch neo-conservatives just like him. It was appalling. The really sad part is that many Americans fell for the "party baiting" hook, line, and sinker, and the only loser in that game was the level of discourse in America.
The bias in the media was no more apparent than when the reporter from CNN accosted a man holding a sign and his two-year-old child. The man's sign was about how his two-year-old was already in debt, and the reporter berated him, demanding whether he knew he was entitled to a check for $400 under the new regime. She wouldn't let him answer her questions, and things got worse from there when she finally claimed, "It is clear this crowd is anti-CNN and anti-government." The clip went viral for a short period, then CNN forced YouTube to take it off the air over copyright issues. Fortunately, FoundingBloggers.com was on-site in Chicago and filmed the dialogue that happened after the CNN cameras were off, and a suburban small-business owner takes the reporter to task, pointing out that CNN failed to show signs such as "Republican's Suck Too. End the Fed."
The reporter keeps trying to pigeonhole the woman as part of a group, and finally the woman explains that both the Democrats and Republicans are to blame for all our ills and that they "all need to go." Too bad that didn't make it to CNN's broadcast. You can watch the clip that CNN had YouTube pull and the off-camera fun below here.
In Minnesota, the blogger "The Grace Kelly" posted this account on the decidedly liberal Daily Kos Web site: "At a protest, normally, one sees the very hardcore support. However, what I saw was widespread disillusionment. In the video, notice how people are blaming politicians on both sides. Note that even though we now have President Obama, there is still acknowledgment that the problems started in the President Bush administration. So unlike other reports, talking to people at the Minnesota tax tea party gave me hope that these people value 'fiscal responsibility' and are actually open to persuasion." You can watch her insightful interviews about fair tax and the Federal Reserve at our Web site.
The SHA (Swine Human Avian) Flu Virus
The front page of the Wall Street Journal on Monday read, "The federal government is releasing 12.5 million courses of its emergency stockpile of potentially effective antiviral drugs to states that need them." Since when does anyone "need" something that is "potentially effective," especially when the risks of the drugs may be higher than the virus? To the WSJ's credit, they refrained from referring to this latest scare as "swine flu," but they did give us unique insight into what the future may hold for you at your airport. Pictured was "Scanning for feverish passengers at an airport in South Korea," showing bio-scans of passengers by their body-heat index. One can imagine the abuse and fear such a vetting process could engender. But don't take my word for it; listen to Dr. Ron Paul, an 11-term congressman from Texas and an MD. He and a Georgia congressmen, Larry McDonald (also an MD), were the only two "no" votes back in 1976 when the government ramped up a similar "swine flu" pandemic scare and mass-vaccinated thousands of people, including military, by force, resulting in 25 deaths and hundreds becoming sick ... from the cure no less. You can watch Paul question why Homeland Security is getting involved in medicine at our Web site.
As always, your feedback about what you read in these pages and online is encouraged. Write us at letters@rcreader.com.
The First Amendment Center has since 1997 annually surveyed Americans' attitudes toward and knowledge of the First Amendment. Last September, on Constitution Day, the Center released its 2008 results, sadly demonstrating the worst level of awareness amongst those surveyed ever.
39 percent would extend to subscription cable and satellite television the government's current authority to regulate content on over-the-air broadcast television.
54 percent would continue IRS regulations that bar religious leaders from openly endorsing political candidates from the pulpit without endangering the tax-exempt status of their organizations.
66 percent say the government should be able to require television broadcasters to offer an equal allotment of time to conservative and liberal broadcasters; 62 percent would apply that same requirement to newspapers, which never have had content regulated by the government.
31 percent would not permit musicians to sing songs with lyrics that others might find offensive.
68 percent favor government restrictions on campaign contributions by private companies, and 55 percent favor such limits on amounts individuals can contribute to someone else's campaign.
The survey found that just 3 percent of those questioned could name "petition" as one of the five freedoms in the First Amendment. Only "speech" was named by a majority of respondents, 56 percent. Less than 20 percent named religion, press, or assembly.
The State of the First Amendment 2008 survey, including questions and responses, as well as survey methodology, is available online at FirstAmendmentCenter.org/sofa_reports/.
It is boiling down to this: How meaningful is the United States Constitution to Americans, and are the founding principles still relevant, let alone worth fighting for? It is that simple. The U.S. Constitution is the single most revolutionary document in the history of governance, bar none, and through its establishment created the most innovative and prosperous nation on Earth.
It is more apparent every day that the "change" Obama was elected to bring will not be forthcoming when it comes to the financial sector and foreign policy. Like Bush's former henchman Paulson, Obama Treasury Secretary Geithner advocates the elite global banking interests and is a puppet of the Federal Reserve Bank (which is neither federal nor reserve - remember? RiverCitiesReader.com/commentary/neither-federal-nor-reserve). It is just that simple.
When are Americans going to stop suffering the politicians' talk in favor of indicting their walk? Obama's and Bush's administrations, in tandem with Congress, have given all new meaning to the term "passing the buck." Each of these political entities has managed to take not a scintilla of responsibility for any of it. And there is no end in sight to the cycle of spending and taxing.
Our elected officials continue to vote up legislation that allocates trillions in subsidies, in what amounts to pure pork disguised as bailouts for unworthy enterprises. What enrages most is the blame game that continues between the political parties' leadership, including the mainstream media according to its party affiliation, with the full participation of the congressmen themselves, who transparently feign outrage over what Wall Street is still getting away with. Meanwhile, these largely incompetent legislators consistently try to disassociate themselves with the outrageous lack of accountability and transparency.
Listening to the congressional debates over pending legislation is almost surreal in its mind-numbing hypocrisy. Both Republicans and Democrats, whether in the Senate or the House, have the supreme audacity to stand at the podium, one after another, and blame each other for a host of earmarks, excessive spending, and lack of oversight, while simultaneously enacting legislation that has countless earmarks, unprecedented excessive spending, and a complete lack of oversight because any regulatory language has no remedy attached.
The Quad-City Times' management, most especially the disgraced editors, get to evaluate whether their decision to smear local appraiser Mark Nelson was worth what it has cost them -- the last vestige of credibility they had in the community as reliable news providers. In what it tried to pass as a news story in its print edition on Tuesday, March 3, the Times disparaged Nelson with myriad unsubstantiated claims about an alleged cover letter he sent with an appraisal that discouraged Royal Banks of Missouri from approving a loan to Amy and Amrit Gill of Restoration St. Louis for the redevelopment of the Blackhawk Hotel as a boutique hotel.
The Quad-City Times endorses the Promise program in Sunday's edition. "Put Faith in Davenport's Kids" is the editorial's title. One commenter noted that this endorsement was from the "Staff" and not the "Editorial Board," suggesting dissent between the staff and board. The Times' all-percieved-growth-at-any-cost/risk-if-it's-taxpayer-funded record is consistent here. They admonish opponents who spent too much time on spreadsheets. "Astute analysts have poked and prodded Promise to assert it cannot pay for itself. That's a standard we've not applied to other government functions and won't apply to this one." This comment brings into focus the proponents' acceptance that providing for one's college education should be a municipal "government function."
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The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence & Analysis issued a "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" reference aid this week. On the heels of its most recent such reference aid, which named American military veterans returning from Iraq as possible extremists domestic terrorists, the DHS's attempt at inclusiveness seems to know no bounds. It is worth emphasizing that the document specifically identifies "non-Islamic extremism" as a threat to the United States. So now if you are pro-environment, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-black, pro-Jew, pro-white, anti-16th Amendment, anti-tax and, even pro-animal rights you might very well be a domestic terrorist. The document even names "alternative media" in its lexicon of domestic terrorism.
