Recently in Fascism Category

I am having one of those days where I am unhappy with the direction of my life. I am working in a field that is swamped with unnecessary regulations and oversight, filled with dysfunctional people, and poorly funded. That means I am paid squat for the work I do in trying to help others overcome their addictions.

I want to write. Not just blog, but write. I have this novel I've been slowly-hell glacially-working on, but I let the other aspects of life interfere. I am struggling in a low paying job, living in a country that currently despises the lower class of it's citizens, which means I feel alienated and hated.

Yeah, I am fed up. I am angry at my country. I am angry at my country's leadership. I am sick and tired of living in a mockracy, not a democracy. We are currently in the early stages of fascism. Our rights have been eroded away bit by bit, each time with a claim of protecting our freedom. My rights are my freedom. Taking away my freedom to ensure my freedom is insanity. Yet time and again I am faced with another claim of taking my freedom to ensure my freedom.

It's like the drunk who keep drinking with the hope that this time it will result in normal drinking; only to wake up in the morning once again having no memory of the activities of the night before.

The country is falling apart, and I feel powerless to stop its slow, inevitable decent into tyranny.

The Daily Brew
February 21, 2008

Suppose, hypothetically, that sometime in the middle of next summer there is a major terrorist attack in the United States. Not on the scale of September 11, but somewhat larger in scale than the attacks in London and Barcelona. Suppose, for example, that on Friday, the Fourth of July, 2008, explosives simultaneously destroy ten subway trains packed with people on their way to the firework shows in New York City and Washington DC, killing 800 people, and injuring 1200 more. What would be the political fallout?

We all know what would happen. It would take perhaps three seconds before the Republican megaphone on AM radio and Fox News blamed the Democrats. The Republicans would immediately point to the Democrat's failure to renew FISA this past week as the reason the attacks were not stopped. The Democrats would then pee in their pants and form a circular firing squad, simultaneously blaming each other for not giving Bush the unfettered power to declare who should live and who should die, and debating whether the fall elections should just be delayed, or canceled entirely. Assuming that the ballot somehow went forward, John McCain would be elected president and the Republicans would re-take both houses of Congress.

The simple, undeniable truth is that the Republicans now have a tremendous amount to gain if America is attacked, and even more to lose if we are not. So put on your tinfoil hats with me and ask yourself if Cheney would let it happen.

I realize that among respectable progressives one is not allowed to even hint that the Republicans are capable of such evil. There is no more certain way to poop in the punchbowl of the comments section any of my favorite blogs than to suggest that you don't buy the official explanation of September 11. Virtually all of the self appointed consignetti of the left-wing commentariat will either ban you outright or mock you for even bringing the topic up. Despite how much we have in common on virtually every other political issue, I have to admit that I regard these people as idiots.

How much evidence do we need to see that the main difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans aren't shy about using violence, including violence against Americans, as a means to an end?  What do the Republicans have to do to prove they are capable of doing damn near anything to further their power?

The head of the Klu Klux Klan has been quoted as publicly predicting that Barrack Obama will be assassinated. No one believes for a minute that if he is elected President, some racist Republican won't try. The anthrax spores that were mailed to then majority leader Tom Daschle were created in a US government facility, yet no one has ever been charged with the crime. Osama bin Laden is blamed for killing three thousand American citizens. At six foot four, he is the most recognized man in the Arab world. He is also disabled, as he is in need of periodic kidney dialysis. Despite that, he has never been caught. The Bush administration deliberately lied to the American public to start an illegal war of choice that has killed thousands of American servicemen, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. They tortured people, some to death, in detention centers in Iraq and Cuba. They paid your tax dollars to hire private corporate mercenary armies to operate outside of the jurisdiction of any sovereign power, while knowing that male employees of these mercenary armies were raping female American citizens who worked for them, with no consequences whatsoever.

Call me a conspiracy nut, but given this track record I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that the Republicans are capable of doing whatever is necessary to stay in power. Quite the contrary, I would suggest that anyone who thinks they would not is hopelessly naive.
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New York Times

Some legal experts and defense lawyers said the judge’s order, issued on Oct. 15 without public disclosure, underscored the gap between military commission procedures and traditional American rules that the accused has a right to a public trial and to confront the witnesses against him.

Defense lawyers say the order would hamper their ability to build an adequate defense because they cannot ask their client or anyone else about prosecution witnesses, making it difficult to test the veracity of testimony.

The order, the documents show, followed a request by military prosecutors who said they feared terrorist retaliation against witnesses who appeared at Guantánamo proceedings.

“It is conceivable, if not likely, that Al Qaeda members or sympathizers could attempt to target witnesses,” a prosecutor, Maj. Jeffrey D. Groharing of the Marines, wrote to the judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army.

The Armed Services are charged with the responsibility of defending the Constitution of the United States. I know this because I remember raising my right hand and swearing to defend the Constitution when I entered the Navy. It makes no sense that the pending commissions are not going to follow the rules of justice derived from the very constitution the military is charged with defending. It makes a mockery of all the values for which our country stands.

Not that I am surprised by this development. The fascist administration currently ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have made no effort to hide their disdain for even the most basic of human rights, the very spirit of the Bill of Rights in our constitution. So, when foreign nationals are being held for trail, it goes without saying they are given even less consideration for their legal rights, let alone their human rights. But then, what do you expect from a cabal of arrogant neo-aristocrats whose legacy stretches as far back as the 1930's and the funding of the Nazi Party.

Studs Terkel points out that our government has had a habit of unconstitutional surveillance on the general populace far longer than just during this administration.

Prison Planet.com

So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting?

Now we have to take all of our bills to the bank and have them replaced, cause they are now 'burnt'.

We will now be wrapping all of our larger bills in foil on a regular basis.

I don't know if this is legitimate, so it's offered without comment.

Washington Post

Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.

The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations.

In an Oct. 12 letter replying to Democratic lawmakers, Verizon offered a rare glimpse into the way telecommunications companies cooperate with government requests for information on U.S. citizens.

Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called. Verizon does not keep data on this "two-generation community of interest" for customers, but the request highlights the broad reach of the government's quest for data.

So, we find out that more and more of the telecom corporations have collaborated with BushCo™ and ignored our constitutional rights. You know, I seem to remember a section of the constitution addressing the existence of corporations. Somehow, their ability to ignore our constitutional rights is not a part of that section.

But, I doubt the drunken members of congress are going to do anything about this situation, they being overly intoxicated with the money tossed liberally by corporations.

Oh, and this:

Verizon and AT&T said it was not their role to second-guess the legitimacy of emergency government requests.

Is fucking bullshit. What they hell do you pay all those lawyers for if not to make sure you are not breaking any laws?

Ah, ya, that's right. It's to keep from having to actually suffer any consequences as a result of breaking laws. My bad.