By Jim Kirwan
6-22-11
- Thought Crimes in the Corrupted Legal System
- There is one avenue of Tyranny that has managed to remain almost entirely overlooked; amid all the chaos of this disintegrating society. Let's look at the Judges, the Courts, the Prosecutor's and the hopelessly corrupt cops that are responsible for the world's largest prison system that incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth. Over 95% of the people in the US prison-system are there not because they committed violent crimes, but because they "violated someone else's idea of how they should live."
- The privatized prison system is a fantastically successful 'income-generating stream' that furnishes the corporate world with virtually free labor; while providing the government with a massively powerful image they continue to use to threaten anyone that might even think about opposing the current system. The virtual KEY to keeping all of this governmental crime operating has always been the co-opting of the totally flawed JURY-SYSTEM that is a by-product of thought control and the entire CHESSBOARD that now rules over politics, education, and civic-interaction but especially over private-thoughts: Altogether this creates the ingredients necessary for the commission ofTHOUGHT-CRIMES.
- This one-track system that we currently have holds that anyone who disagrees with any government policy is automatically an Enemy of the State. When an individual is arrested and charged; his or her chances for a "fair-trail" are far from good if that 'suspect' has any unusual or suspicious habits in his or her life. The population is now expected to live their lives without ever making a single recorded mistake-anywhere within the official record of their lives: Because no matter how long ago, or how trivial the mistake; that "ERROR" can always be recalled to color the personality of the accused to suit the prosecutor's (and simultaneously the skewed JURIES ends).
- The completely distorted powers of the judges in most criminal cases has become a criminal-farce. This is true because American LAW has never been about either justice or truth: Rather it has always been about playing a privately-conceived legal game inside the courtroom according to the rules of British Maritime Law. In this game the judge alone gets to decide which items of evidence can be admitted into the decision and which cannot. This has nothing whatever to do with the US Constitution or American laws at all but is a function of Admiralty Law of the Seas and dates back to the Magna Carta and before. Basically what we have today is CORPORATE-LAW being exercised between the various Corporate-Rules that govern Human Ownership. (1)
- The key to keeping all this criminality in motion has always been the completely suspect verdicts of the jury-system. I say "suspect" because the lives and thoughts of the jury members are not solely those of the individuals themselves but are rather a construct of imbedded action-reaction-equations that this society has been inculcating its citizens with, from the moment of their birth. Consequently the "principles" that ought to be at stake in any trial don't even make it into the room. Instead juries tend to listen to the guidance from the bench about what and how they "MUST RULE" in any given case: And when the judges are as crooked as the cops and the prosecutors there is virtually no-chance for the defendant to escape conviction; which actually has nothing to do with whatever he or she was originally charged with. This is because Amerrikans now believe that there can only be one way to deal with people that do not obey every rule created at the whim of fascist police-state in which we now live.
The so-called police now openly murder people, for no reason whatsoever; and contrary to every police-department that always swears that it will "INVESTIGATE" magically the cops always seem to evade prosecution or as in the case of the cold-blooded murder of Oscar Grant in Oakland: his killer was released after serving just 11 months in jail. The latest case from Phoenix illustrates my point here very clearly. - Basically the message to the public (in Phoenix) is if you want to die at the hands of police then "go ahead call 911!" The 29 year old UNARMED man was having a dispute with his mother, she called police. They arrived, entered the residence and within less-than a minute the family dog was killed and the suspect was first Tasered and then murdered. The conversation consisted of these words: "When they entered the home the 29 year old told them to leave saying they needed a warrant. Officer Chrisman (?) then pulled out his gun and put it up to the man's head saying: "I don't need no warrant, mother-*****r". Then it turned into a heated argument and a scuffle; the victim was Tazed twice, the officer then shot and killed the family dog then shot and killed Rodriguez as the two argued."
- This was witnessed by the other police officer who said that "this was the worst day of his life." But the most telling statement about this MURDER came from the end of the tape whereon the Union Rep for the murderer demanded that his client (the killer) be given a fair and complete hearing about "all the facts in this case," BEFORE any action can be taken against this so-called officer? How is it that the killer can demand just treatment and the victim who was murdered got none of that: He was simply murdered by a psychotic rabid "officer" with deadly force in both hands. The law either applies to everyone involved or it applies to NO ONE which would include those that resist any official in a uniform, anywhere, from TSA to anywhere USA. Listen to the video-tape and decide what you think for yourself-which incidentally just happens to be the key CRIME (actually thinking for yourself) behind committing a thought-crime in theUS today. (2)
- Cops and first responders are just NOT that SPECIAL. They are not heroes or legendary warriors they are public servants that are over-paid to do their jobs. Part of their jobs involves life-threatening work, that's true, but no one forced them to do the work they do. And above all they should be held to HIGHER STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR, than the public they are supposedly protecting: However the fact is they are biased, terrorized and terrifyingly deaf, dumb and blind to the public that they are called on to protect. After so many public-whitewashing of events that have seen hundreds of citizens die at the hands of police that are never charged with any crime; Even this herd of useless spectators might actually begin to answer fire with fire-unless something radically-fair begins to happen in every instance that happens from this day forward. We have enough problems without having to worry that every cop responding might just choose to execute the man or woman instead of actually abiding by the so-called LAW that only protects the filthy-rich from those that have nothing!
- In the Handbook for Human Ownership; the way the public's ideas about the system and their own responsibilities are now formed within that system is thoroughly explained; and what it shows anyone willing to take the time to listen to the tape is that our 'people' are controlled from the cradle to the grave in order to be useful slaves and nothing more; to whatever the OWNERS of their lives decide that they MUST do.
- What is also clear is that the personal-habits of the Judges, the Prosecutors, the Cops and the OWNERS of the Human-beings that make up this society are NEVER called into question-EVER! Please remember that these are the same people that created the screwed-up educational system, along with all the very twisted norms of behavior that everyone else is supposed to live by today. THEY however are immune from all the laws, and all the normally applicable consequences for their actions, while the rest of us are overtly responsible even for "thinking" the things I've just said above. None of these perverts in office could withstand a complete and unbiased examination of all their habits and preoccupations; if they were ever to be subjected to the same interrogations that "suspects: have to undergo at the slightest indication of any possibly suspect behavior! WHY NOT? That's easy because they are the ones that created all these hoops for the rest of us to jump through a thousand times each and every month! (3)
- Victims in this country are a dime a dozen; and since we do not care what happens to those that fall into that category it will only get worse. However everyone that is so lucky will live to see old-age and this is some of what they have to look forward to thanks to what is about to happen to Social Security coupled with our assassins in uniform that still call themselves cops! You can change this by simply defending those that you love whenever they get caught up in anything from a TSA line to a traffic-stop; but you have to be willing to take action because these creatures will not just walk away or change on their own into what they should have been all along. (4)
- This straight-jacket we are living inside took hundreds of years to create; and if the public actually were to become motivated it could be destroyed in a month; but only if and when the public finally comes to understand that it is the American Public that is now in the CROSSHAIRS of every one of its own government agencies, not to mention the completely failed two-party system that perpetuates the myth that there is any choice or difference between any of the serving politicians regardless of what they might choose to call themselves. . . it's still up to us to DO SOMETHING to change this intolerable situation!
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
- 1) Freedom to Fascism full length video
- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173#
- 2) Arizona Police Officer Execute Man for telling them that they needed a warrant
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx9Mt4krDtc
- 3) The Handbook of Human Ownership
- http://www.batr.org/wrack/061911.html
- 4) The Forgotten Victims
- http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/california/cal11.htm
Showing posts with label police state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police state. Show all posts
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Prosecuting The Public
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Government Patents to Control Us
Patent 1,096,102 - The Hollow Earth Theory
Patent 3,951,134 - Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves
Patent 4,686,685 - Method And Apparatus for Altering a Region in the Earth's Atmosphere, Ionosphere, and/or Magnetosphere
Patent 4,717,343 - Method of Changing Person's Behavior
Patent 4,858,612 - Hearing Device
Patent 4,877,027 - Hearing System
Patent 5,123,899 - Method and System for Altering Consciousness
Patent 5,159,703 - Silent Subliminal Presentation System
Patent 5,270,800 - Subliminal Message Generator
Patent 5,507,291 - Method and an Associated Apparatus for Remotely Determining information as to Person's Emotional State
Patent 5,539,705 - Ultrasonic Speech Translator and Communications System
Patent 5,629,678 - Personal Tracking and Recovery System
Patent 5,760,692 - Intra-oral Tracking Device
Patent 5,878,155 - Method for verifying human identity during electronic sale transactions (Mark of the Beast) Read more about this patent here: Mark of the Beast: The Patent
Patent 5,905,461 - Global Positioning Satellite Tracking Device
Patent 5,935,054 - Magnetic excitation of Sensory Resonances
Patent 5,952,600 - Engine Disabling Weapon
Patent 6,006,188 - Speech Signal Processing for Determining Psychological or Physiological Characteristics Using a Knowledge Base
Patent 6,011,991 - Communication system and method including brain wave analysis and/or use of brain activity
Patent 6,014,080 - Body Worn Active and Passive Tracking Device
Patent 6,017,302 - Subliminal Acoustic Manipulation of Nervous System
Patent 6,051,594 - Methods and Formulations for Modulating the Human Sexual Response
Patent 6,669,094 - Method of Embedding and Recovering Encoded Item Identification Information in an Emulsion by Means of Radiant Energy
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Planning Agency Approves Homeland Security Complex
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2009; Page B01
Friday, January 9, 2009; Page B01
After years of battling historic preservationists, the federal government won approval yesterday to build a massive headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security on a 176-acre hilltop site east of the Anacostia River.
The $3.4 billion headquarters would be one of the largest construction projects in the Washington area since the Pentagon was built in the 1940s. Advocates say it would generate economic activity in one of the city's poorer corners and provide a secure workplace for 14,000 Homeland Security employees scattered across the Washington area.
"This is an important step forward for Anacostia and for Washington," said John V. Cogbill III, chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, which voted 9 to 1 to approve the master plan for the headquarters, to be built on the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital.
Historical preservationists have said the project would ruin a national landmark site with panoramic views of the District, where the first federal psychiatric institution was established in Southeast Washington in 1852. Some questioned whether a high-security facility tucked behind two layers of fencing would produce much of a payoff for the neighborhood.
"The DHS employees might as well be working on the moon for all their presence will benefit the city," testified David Garrison, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, who said that the personnel would largely commute from the suburbs.
The dissenting vote on the master plan came from a National Park Service representative, who warned that the development could endanger the site's historic landmark status.
If Congress provides funding, construction will begin next year and continue through 2016, according to the plan. Building the complex and renovating existing historical structures would create at least 26,000 jobs, officials said.
"The timing is optimal," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who has championed the project. "Development has dried up in the city, and this is direct government-funded work."
Under the plan, most of the facility would be built on the vacant western campus of St. Elizabeths, property owned by the federal General Services Administration. One large building would be constructed on land leased from the District on the eastern campus, where the D.C. government is hoping to lure offices, restaurants and shops.
Residents of nearby neighborhoods have expressed mixed feelings about the complex. James Bunn, executive director of the Ward 8 Business Council, predicted that Homeland Security's migration would serve as a long-needed catalyst for new retail and housing in the Congress Heights community.
"Those 14,000 employees will need a place to live," he said. "And they'll need somewhere to eat. I can already see a coffee shop or a sit-down restaurant. It's a win-win situation for the ward."
But Linda Jackson, executive director of the East of the River Community Development Corp., questioned whether Homeland Security employees would leave their self-contained campus along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and frequent nearby businesses.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Martial Law, the Financial Bailout, and War
Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Global Research
January 8, 2009
Paulson’s Financial Bailout
It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.
The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.
According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by “news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits.”1 In addition, as AP reported in October, “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,’ he said.”2
Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed.3
The financial bailout legislation of September 2008 was only passed after members of both Congressional houses were warned that failure to act would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law.
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.4
Here are the original remarks by Senator Inhofe:
Speaking on Tulsa Oklahoma’s 1170 KFAQ, when asked who was behind threats of martial law and civil unrest if the bailout bill failed, Senator James Inhofe named Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the source. “Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell. “That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”5
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA 27th District) reported the same threat on the Congressional floor (Rep. Sherman later downplayed his remarks slightly on the Alex Jones show):
“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating a panic atmosphere…. Many of us were told that the sky would fall…. A few of us were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear-mongering, unjustified, proven wrong.”6
So it is clear that threats of martial law were used to get this reprehensible bailout legislation passed. It also seems clear that Congress was told of a threat of martial law, not itself threatened. It is still entirely appropriate to link such talk to the Army’s rapid moves to redefine its role as one of controlling the American people, not just protecting them. In a constitutional polity based on balance of powers, we see the emergence of a radical new military power that is as yet completely unbalanced.
The Army’s New Role in 2001: Not Protecting American Society, but Controlling It
This new role for the Army is not wholly unprecedented. The U.S. military had been training troops and police in "civil disturbance planning" for the last three decades. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, or "Operation Garden Plot," was developed in 1968 in response to the major protests and disturbances of the 1960s.
But on January 19, 2001, on the last day of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Army promulgated a new and permanent Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program. It encapsulated its difference from the preceding, externally-oriented Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) as follows:
a. In 1985, the Chief of Staff of the Army established the Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) to ensure the continuity of essential Army missions and functions.
ASRRS doctrine was focused primarily on a response to the worst case 1980’s threat of a massive nuclear laydown on CONUS as a result of a confrontation with the Soviet Union.
b. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former Soviet Union significantly reduced the probability of a major nuclear attack on CONUS but the probability of other threats has increased. Army organizations must be prepared for any contingency with a potential for interruption of normal operations.
To emphasize that Army continuity of operations planning is now focused on the full all-hazards threat spectrum, the name "ASRRS" has been replaced by the more generic title “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program.”7
This document embodied the secret Continuity of Operations (COG) planning conducted secretly by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others through the 1980s and 1990s.8 This planning was initially for continuity measures in the event of a nuclear attack, but soon called for suspension of the Constitution, not just “after a nuclear war” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Reagan’s Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988 as “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” The effect was to impose on domestic civil society the extreme measures once planned for a response to a nuclear attack from abroad.9
In like fashion ARR 500-3 Regulation clarified that it was a plan for “the execution of mission-essential functions without unacceptable interruption during a national security or domestic emergency.”
Donald Rumsfeld, who as a private citizen had helped author the COG planning, promptly signed and implemented the revised ARR 500-3. Eight months later, on 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld implemented COG, a significant event of which we still know next to nothing. What we do know is that plans began almost immediately – as foreseen by COG planning the 1980s — to implement warrantless surveillance and detention of large numbers of civilians, and that in January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets.10
Then in April 2002, Defense officials implemented a plan for domestic U.S. military operations by creating a new U.S. Northern Command (CINC-NORTHCOM) for the continental United States.11 In short, what were being implemented were the most prominent features of the COG planning which Oliver North had worked on in the 1980s.
Deep Events and Changes of Party in the White House
Like so many other significant steps since World War Two towards a military-industrial state, the Army’s Regulation 500-3 surfaced in the last days of a departing administration (in this case the very last day). It is worth noticing that, ever since the 1950s, dubious events–of the unpublic variety I have called deep events–have marked the last months before a change of party in the White House. These deep events have tended to a) constrain incoming presidents, if the incomer is a Democrat, or alternatively b) to pave the way for the incomer, if he is a Republican.
Consider, in the first category, the following (when a Republican was succeeded by a Democrat):
* In December 1960 the CIA secured approval for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and escalated events in Laos into a crisis for which the Joint Chiefs proposed sending 60,000 troops. These events profoundly affected President Kennedy’s posture towards Cuba and Indochina.
* In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush installed an outside Team B intelligence unit to enlarge drastically estimates of the Soviet threat to the United States, eventually frustrating and reversing presidential candidate Jimmy Carter’s campaign pledge to cut the U.S. defense budget.12
Equally important were events in the second category (when a Democrat was succeeded by a Republican):
* In late 1968 Kissinger, while advising the Johnson administration, gave secret information to the Nixon campaign that helped Nixon to obstruct the peace agreement in Vietnam that was about to be negotiated at the peace talks then taking place in Paris. (According to Seymour Hersh,“The Nixon campaign, alerted by Kissinger to the impending success of the peace talks, was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government” in Saigon. making it clear that a Nixon presidency would offer a better deal. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey.13 Kissinger was not the kind of person to have betrayed his president on his own personal initiative. At the time Nixon’s campaign manager, John Mitchell (one of the very few in on the secret), told Hersh that “I thought Henry [Kissinger] was doing it because Nelson [Rockefeller] wanted him to. Nelson asked Henry to help and he did.”14
* In 1980 the so-called October Surprise, with the help of people inside CIA, helped ensure that the Americans held hostage in Iran would not be returned before the inauguration of Reagan. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of incumbent Jimmy Carter.15 Once again, the influence of the Rockefellers can be discerned. A CIA officer later reported hearing Joseph V. Reed, an aide to David Rockefeller, comment in 1981 to William Casey, the newly installed CIA Director, about their joint success in disrupting Carter’s plans to bring home the hostages.16
Both the financial bailout, extorted from Congress and the escalated preparations for martial law can be seen as transitional events of the first category. Whatever the explanations for their timing, they will constrain Obama’s freedom to make his own policies. I fear moreover they may have the consequence of easing this country into unforeseen escalations of the Afghan war.
The Intensive Quiet Preparations for Martial Law
Let us deal first with the preparations for martial law. On September 30, 2008, the Army Times announced the redeployment of an active Brigade Army Team from Iraq to America, in a new mission that “may become a permanent part of the active Army”:
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. . . . After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one. . . .They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.17
This announcement followed by two weeks the talk of civil unrest and martial law that was used to panic the Congress into passing Paulson’s bailout legislation. Not only that, the two unprecedented events mirror each other: the bailout debate anticipated civil unrest and martial law, while the announced positioning of an active Brigade Combat Team on U.S. soil anticipated civil unrest (such as might result from the bailout legislation).
Then on December 17, 2008, US Northern Command chief General Renuart announced that “the US military plans to mobilize thousands of troops to protect Washington against potential terrorist attack during the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama.”18
The US Army War College has also raised the possibility of the U.S. Army being used to control civil unrest, according to the Phoenix Business Journal:
A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.
“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.
The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.19
It is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has been unheralded. Senator Leahy was thus right to draw our attention to it back on September 29, 2006, in his objections to the final form of the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, which gave the president increased power to call up the National Guard for law enforcement:
It . . . should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law. There is good reason for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.20
This quiet agglomeration of military power has not “just growed,” like Topsy, through inadvertence. It shows sustained intention, even if no one has made a public case for it.
How the Bush Administration Protected Predatory Lending and Let the Financial Crisis Grow
Let us now consider the financial crisis and the panic bailout. No one should think that the crisis was unforeseen. Back in February Eliot Spitzer, in one of his last acts as governor of New York, warned about the impending crisis created by predatory lending, and reveled that the Bush Administration was blocking state efforts to deal with it. His extraordinary warning, in the Washington Post, is worth quoting at some length:
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. …
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . Several state legislatures, including New York’s, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices. . . .Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal [Treasury] agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.21
Eliot Spitzer submitted his Op Ed to the Washington Post on February 13. If it had an impact, it was not the one Spitzer had hoped for. On March 10 the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer’s encounter with a prostitute. According to a later Times story, “on Feb. 13 [the day Spitzer’s Op Ed went up on the Washington Post website] federal agents staked out his hotel in Washington.”22
It is remarkable that the Mainstream Media found Spitzer’s private life to be big news, but not his charges that Paulson’s Treasury was prolonging the financial crisis, or the relation of these charges to Spitzer’s exposure. As a weblog commented,
The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer’s all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.
While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer’s public charges against the White House.
Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer’s private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.23
After Spitzer’s Op Ed was published, according to Greg Palast, the Federal Reserve, “for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.”24
What are we to make of Spitzer’s charge that the Bush administration interfered to preempt state laws against predatory lending, and of the fact that the mainstream media did not report that? A petty motive for the OCC’s behavior in 2003 might have been to allow the housing bubble to continue through 2003 and 2004, thus facilitating Bush’s re-election. But the persistence of Treasury obstruction thereafter, despite the unanimous opposition of all fifty states, and the continuing silence of the media about this disagreement, suggest that some broader policy intention may have been at stake.
One is struck by the similarities with the Savings and Loan scandal which was allowed to continue through the Reagan 1980s, long after it became apparent that deliberate bankruptcy was being used by unscrupulous profiteers to amass illegal fortunes at what was ultimately public expense.25
In the same way, the long drawn-out housing bubble of the current Bush decade, and particularly the derivative bubble that was floated upon it, allowed the Bush administration to help offset the trillion-dollar-plus cost of its Iraq misadventure,26 by creating spurious securities that sold for hundreds of billions, not just in the United States, but through the rest of the world.
In the long run, this was not a sustainable source of wealth for America’s financial class, which is now suffering like everyone else from the consequent recession. But in the short run, the financial crisis and bailout made it possible for Bush to wage a costly war without experiencing the kind of debilitating inflation that was brought on by America’s Vietnam War.
The trillion dollar meltdown,27 in other words, can be rationalized as having helped finance the Iraq War. When we turn to the martial law preparations, however, they are being made in anticipation of civil unrest in the future. Why such intense preparation for this?
The obvious answer of course is memory of the rioting that occurred in San Francisco and elsewhere during the great depression of the 1930s. Indeed that thought may be uppermost among those who recently arranged for the redeployment of a Brigade Combat Team from Iraq to America. But the planning for martial law in America dates back almost three decades, from the days when Reagan appointed Rumsfeld, Cheney and others to plan secretly for what was misleadingly called Continuity [i.e., Change] of Government. Concern about the 2008 recession cannot have been on their minds then, or on those who introduced the Army’s “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program” on January 19, 2001. Instead the “full all-hazards threat spectrum” envisaged in that document was clearly ancillary to the doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance” that had been articulated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff blueprint, Joint Vision 2020, endorsed eight months earlier on May 30, 2000.28
The interest of Cheney and Rumsfeld in COG planning, including planning for martial law, also envisaged full spectrum dominance. This is made clear by their simultaneous engagement in the 1990s in the public Project for the New American Century (PNAC). PNAC’s goals were stated very explicitly in their document Rebuilding America’s Defenses: to increase defense spending so as to establish America’s military presence throughout the world as an unchallengeable power. This would entail permanent U.S. forces in central as well as east Asia, even after the disappearance[jam1] of Saddam Hussein.29
In short PNAC’s program was a blueprint for permanent overseas American empire, a project they recognized would not be easily accepted by an American democracy. Their call frankly acknowledged that it would be difficult to gain support for their projected increase in defense spending to “a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.” “The process of transformation,” the document admitted, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”30
There is of course every reason to hope that the disastrous era of Rumsfeld and Cheney is about to end, with the election of Barack Obama. Obama has made it clear that he will pursue a foreign policy dedicated to diplomacy and multilateralism. In this spirit he has declared his willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions.
But Obama’s stated reason for disengagement from Iraq – “The scale of our deployments in Iraq continues to set back our ability to finish the fight in Afghanistan”31 – is very ominous. Few serious students of the Afghan scene believe that America can “finish the fight in Afghanistan,” any more successfully than could the Russians or British before them. The U.S. position there is visibly deteriorating, while the U.S. strategy of cross-border attacks is having the effect of destabilizing Pakistan as well. The U.S.-backed Karzai regime has so little control over the countryside that Kabul itself is now coming under rocket attack. Experts on the scene agree that any effort to “finish” will be a long-term proposition requiring at a minimum a vastly escalated commitment of U.S. troops.32
One cannot predict the future, but one can examine the past. For thirty years I have been writing about the persistence in America of a war mentality that, time after time, trumps reasonable policies of negotiation, and leads us further into armed conflict. This dominant mindset is not restricted to any single agency or cabal, but is rather the likely outcome of on-going tensions between hawks and doves in the internal politics of Washington.
If a container of rocks and gravel is shaken vigorously, the probability is that the gravel will gravitate towards the bottom, leaving the largest rocks at the top. There is an analogous probability that, in an on-going debate over engaging or withdrawing from a difficult military contest, the forces for engagement will come out on top, regardless of circumstances. Available military power tends to be used, and one of the most remarkable features of history since 1945 is that this tendency has not so far repeated itself with atomic weapons.
Let me explain this metaphor in more concrete detail. Progressive societies (in this era usually democracies) tend to expand their presence beyond their geographic boundaries. This expanded presence calls for new institutions, usually (like the CIA) free from democratic accountability. This accretion of unaccountable power, in what I have elsewhere called the deep state, disrupts the public state’s system of checks and balances which is the underpinning of sane, deliberative policy.
We might expect of progressive democracies that they would evolve towards more and more rational foreign policies. But because of the dialectic just described, what we see is the exact opposite – evolution towards foolish and sometimes disastrous engagements. When Britain became more democratic in the late 19th Century, it also initiated the Boer War, a war very suited to the private imperial needs of Cecil Rhodes, but irrelevant if not deleterious to the interests of the British people.33 Hitler’s dreams of a Third Reich, entailing a doomed repeat of Napoleon’s venture into the heart of Russia, suited the needs of the German industrialists who had financed the Nazis; but from the outset sane heads of the German military staff could foresee the coming disaster.
For over a half century now, beginning with Vietnam, unaccountable forces have been maneuvering America into unsustainable adventures on the Asian mainland. We now know that Kennedy did not intend ever to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.34 But the fatal planning to expand the Vietnam War north of the 17th parallel was authorized in the last week of his aborted presidency, probably without his being aware.35 When elected, Jimmy Carter was determined to reduce the size and frequency of CIA covert operations.36 Yet his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, initiated maneuvers in Afghanistan that led to the largest CIA covert operation (and in my view, one of the most deleterious) of all time.37
Global Research
January 8, 2009
Paulson’s Financial Bailout
It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.
 | |
 | |
| It is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has been unheralded. | |
According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by “news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits.”1 In addition, as AP reported in October, “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,’ he said.”2
Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details of the Troubled Assets Relief Program spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, while the New York Federal Reserve has refused to provide information about its own bail-out (using government-backed loans) that amounts to trillions. This lack of transparency has been challenged by Fox TV in a FOIA suit against the Treasury Department, and a suit by Bloomberg News against the Fed.3
The financial bailout legislation of September 2008 was only passed after members of both Congressional houses were warned that failure to act would threaten civil unrest and the imposition of martial law.
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.4
Here are the original remarks by Senator Inhofe:
Speaking on Tulsa Oklahoma’s 1170 KFAQ, when asked who was behind threats of martial law and civil unrest if the bailout bill failed, Senator James Inhofe named Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the source. “Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell. “That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”5
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA 27th District) reported the same threat on the Congressional floor (Rep. Sherman later downplayed his remarks slightly on the Alex Jones show):
“The only way they can pass this bill is by creating a panic atmosphere…. Many of us were told that the sky would fall…. A few of us were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no. That’s what I call fear-mongering, unjustified, proven wrong.”6
So it is clear that threats of martial law were used to get this reprehensible bailout legislation passed. It also seems clear that Congress was told of a threat of martial law, not itself threatened. It is still entirely appropriate to link such talk to the Army’s rapid moves to redefine its role as one of controlling the American people, not just protecting them. In a constitutional polity based on balance of powers, we see the emergence of a radical new military power that is as yet completely unbalanced.
The Army’s New Role in 2001: Not Protecting American Society, but Controlling It
This new role for the Army is not wholly unprecedented. The U.S. military had been training troops and police in "civil disturbance planning" for the last three decades. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, or "Operation Garden Plot," was developed in 1968 in response to the major protests and disturbances of the 1960s.
But on January 19, 2001, on the last day of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Army promulgated a new and permanent Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program. It encapsulated its difference from the preceding, externally-oriented Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) as follows:
a. In 1985, the Chief of Staff of the Army established the Army Survival, Recovery, and Reconstitution System (ASRRS) to ensure the continuity of essential Army missions and functions.
ASRRS doctrine was focused primarily on a response to the worst case 1980’s threat of a massive nuclear laydown on CONUS as a result of a confrontation with the Soviet Union.
b. The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the former Soviet Union significantly reduced the probability of a major nuclear attack on CONUS but the probability of other threats has increased. Army organizations must be prepared for any contingency with a potential for interruption of normal operations.
To emphasize that Army continuity of operations planning is now focused on the full all-hazards threat spectrum, the name "ASRRS" has been replaced by the more generic title “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program.”7
This document embodied the secret Continuity of Operations (COG) planning conducted secretly by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others through the 1980s and 1990s.8 This planning was initially for continuity measures in the event of a nuclear attack, but soon called for suspension of the Constitution, not just “after a nuclear war” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Reagan’s Executive Order 12656 of November 18, 1988 as “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” The effect was to impose on domestic civil society the extreme measures once planned for a response to a nuclear attack from abroad.9
In like fashion ARR 500-3 Regulation clarified that it was a plan for “the execution of mission-essential functions without unacceptable interruption during a national security or domestic emergency.”
Donald Rumsfeld, who as a private citizen had helped author the COG planning, promptly signed and implemented the revised ARR 500-3. Eight months later, on 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld implemented COG, a significant event of which we still know next to nothing. What we do know is that plans began almost immediately – as foreseen by COG planning the 1980s — to implement warrantless surveillance and detention of large numbers of civilians, and that in January 2002 the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on American streets.10
Then in April 2002, Defense officials implemented a plan for domestic U.S. military operations by creating a new U.S. Northern Command (CINC-NORTHCOM) for the continental United States.11 In short, what were being implemented were the most prominent features of the COG planning which Oliver North had worked on in the 1980s.
Deep Events and Changes of Party in the White House
Like so many other significant steps since World War Two towards a military-industrial state, the Army’s Regulation 500-3 surfaced in the last days of a departing administration (in this case the very last day). It is worth noticing that, ever since the 1950s, dubious events–of the unpublic variety I have called deep events–have marked the last months before a change of party in the White House. These deep events have tended to a) constrain incoming presidents, if the incomer is a Democrat, or alternatively b) to pave the way for the incomer, if he is a Republican.
Consider, in the first category, the following (when a Republican was succeeded by a Democrat):
* In December 1960 the CIA secured approval for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and escalated events in Laos into a crisis for which the Joint Chiefs proposed sending 60,000 troops. These events profoundly affected President Kennedy’s posture towards Cuba and Indochina.
* In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush installed an outside Team B intelligence unit to enlarge drastically estimates of the Soviet threat to the United States, eventually frustrating and reversing presidential candidate Jimmy Carter’s campaign pledge to cut the U.S. defense budget.12
Equally important were events in the second category (when a Democrat was succeeded by a Republican):
* In late 1968 Kissinger, while advising the Johnson administration, gave secret information to the Nixon campaign that helped Nixon to obstruct the peace agreement in Vietnam that was about to be negotiated at the peace talks then taking place in Paris. (According to Seymour Hersh,“The Nixon campaign, alerted by Kissinger to the impending success of the peace talks, was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government” in Saigon. making it clear that a Nixon presidency would offer a better deal. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey.13 Kissinger was not the kind of person to have betrayed his president on his own personal initiative. At the time Nixon’s campaign manager, John Mitchell (one of the very few in on the secret), told Hersh that “I thought Henry [Kissinger] was doing it because Nelson [Rockefeller] wanted him to. Nelson asked Henry to help and he did.”14
* In 1980 the so-called October Surprise, with the help of people inside CIA, helped ensure that the Americans held hostage in Iran would not be returned before the inauguration of Reagan. This was a major factor in securing the defeat of incumbent Jimmy Carter.15 Once again, the influence of the Rockefellers can be discerned. A CIA officer later reported hearing Joseph V. Reed, an aide to David Rockefeller, comment in 1981 to William Casey, the newly installed CIA Director, about their joint success in disrupting Carter’s plans to bring home the hostages.16
Both the financial bailout, extorted from Congress and the escalated preparations for martial law can be seen as transitional events of the first category. Whatever the explanations for their timing, they will constrain Obama’s freedom to make his own policies. I fear moreover they may have the consequence of easing this country into unforeseen escalations of the Afghan war.
The Intensive Quiet Preparations for Martial Law
Let us deal first with the preparations for martial law. On September 30, 2008, the Army Times announced the redeployment of an active Brigade Army Team from Iraq to America, in a new mission that “may become a permanent part of the active Army”:
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. . . . After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one. . . .They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.17
This announcement followed by two weeks the talk of civil unrest and martial law that was used to panic the Congress into passing Paulson’s bailout legislation. Not only that, the two unprecedented events mirror each other: the bailout debate anticipated civil unrest and martial law, while the announced positioning of an active Brigade Combat Team on U.S. soil anticipated civil unrest (such as might result from the bailout legislation).
Then on December 17, 2008, US Northern Command chief General Renuart announced that “the US military plans to mobilize thousands of troops to protect Washington against potential terrorist attack during the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama.”18
The US Army War College has also raised the possibility of the U.S. Army being used to control civil unrest, according to the Phoenix Business Journal:
A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.
“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.
The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.19
It is clear that there has been a sustained move in the direction of martial law preparations, a trend that has been as continuous as it has been unheralded. Senator Leahy was thus right to draw our attention to it back on September 29, 2006, in his objections to the final form of the Fiscal Year 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, which gave the president increased power to call up the National Guard for law enforcement:
It . . . should concern us all that the Conference agreement includes language that subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law. There is good reason for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.20
This quiet agglomeration of military power has not “just growed,” like Topsy, through inadvertence. It shows sustained intention, even if no one has made a public case for it.
How the Bush Administration Protected Predatory Lending and Let the Financial Crisis Grow
Let us now consider the financial crisis and the panic bailout. No one should think that the crisis was unforeseen. Back in February Eliot Spitzer, in one of his last acts as governor of New York, warned about the impending crisis created by predatory lending, and reveled that the Bush Administration was blocking state efforts to deal with it. His extraordinary warning, in the Washington Post, is worth quoting at some length:
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. …
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . Several state legislatures, including New York’s, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices. . . .Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal [Treasury] agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.21
Eliot Spitzer submitted his Op Ed to the Washington Post on February 13. If it had an impact, it was not the one Spitzer had hoped for. On March 10 the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer’s encounter with a prostitute. According to a later Times story, “on Feb. 13 [the day Spitzer’s Op Ed went up on the Washington Post website] federal agents staked out his hotel in Washington.”22
It is remarkable that the Mainstream Media found Spitzer’s private life to be big news, but not his charges that Paulson’s Treasury was prolonging the financial crisis, or the relation of these charges to Spitzer’s exposure. As a weblog commented,
The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer’s all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.
While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer’s public charges against the White House.
Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer’s private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.23
After Spitzer’s Op Ed was published, according to Greg Palast, the Federal Reserve, “for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.”24
What are we to make of Spitzer’s charge that the Bush administration interfered to preempt state laws against predatory lending, and of the fact that the mainstream media did not report that? A petty motive for the OCC’s behavior in 2003 might have been to allow the housing bubble to continue through 2003 and 2004, thus facilitating Bush’s re-election. But the persistence of Treasury obstruction thereafter, despite the unanimous opposition of all fifty states, and the continuing silence of the media about this disagreement, suggest that some broader policy intention may have been at stake.
One is struck by the similarities with the Savings and Loan scandal which was allowed to continue through the Reagan 1980s, long after it became apparent that deliberate bankruptcy was being used by unscrupulous profiteers to amass illegal fortunes at what was ultimately public expense.25
In the same way, the long drawn-out housing bubble of the current Bush decade, and particularly the derivative bubble that was floated upon it, allowed the Bush administration to help offset the trillion-dollar-plus cost of its Iraq misadventure,26 by creating spurious securities that sold for hundreds of billions, not just in the United States, but through the rest of the world.
In the long run, this was not a sustainable source of wealth for America’s financial class, which is now suffering like everyone else from the consequent recession. But in the short run, the financial crisis and bailout made it possible for Bush to wage a costly war without experiencing the kind of debilitating inflation that was brought on by America’s Vietnam War.
The trillion dollar meltdown,27 in other words, can be rationalized as having helped finance the Iraq War. When we turn to the martial law preparations, however, they are being made in anticipation of civil unrest in the future. Why such intense preparation for this?
The obvious answer of course is memory of the rioting that occurred in San Francisco and elsewhere during the great depression of the 1930s. Indeed that thought may be uppermost among those who recently arranged for the redeployment of a Brigade Combat Team from Iraq to America. But the planning for martial law in America dates back almost three decades, from the days when Reagan appointed Rumsfeld, Cheney and others to plan secretly for what was misleadingly called Continuity [i.e., Change] of Government. Concern about the 2008 recession cannot have been on their minds then, or on those who introduced the Army’s “Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program” on January 19, 2001. Instead the “full all-hazards threat spectrum” envisaged in that document was clearly ancillary to the doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance” that had been articulated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff blueprint, Joint Vision 2020, endorsed eight months earlier on May 30, 2000.28
The interest of Cheney and Rumsfeld in COG planning, including planning for martial law, also envisaged full spectrum dominance. This is made clear by their simultaneous engagement in the 1990s in the public Project for the New American Century (PNAC). PNAC’s goals were stated very explicitly in their document Rebuilding America’s Defenses: to increase defense spending so as to establish America’s military presence throughout the world as an unchallengeable power. This would entail permanent U.S. forces in central as well as east Asia, even after the disappearance[jam1] of Saddam Hussein.29
In short PNAC’s program was a blueprint for permanent overseas American empire, a project they recognized would not be easily accepted by an American democracy. Their call frankly acknowledged that it would be difficult to gain support for their projected increase in defense spending to “a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually.” “The process of transformation,” the document admitted, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”30
There is of course every reason to hope that the disastrous era of Rumsfeld and Cheney is about to end, with the election of Barack Obama. Obama has made it clear that he will pursue a foreign policy dedicated to diplomacy and multilateralism. In this spirit he has declared his willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions.
But Obama’s stated reason for disengagement from Iraq – “The scale of our deployments in Iraq continues to set back our ability to finish the fight in Afghanistan”31 – is very ominous. Few serious students of the Afghan scene believe that America can “finish the fight in Afghanistan,” any more successfully than could the Russians or British before them. The U.S. position there is visibly deteriorating, while the U.S. strategy of cross-border attacks is having the effect of destabilizing Pakistan as well. The U.S.-backed Karzai regime has so little control over the countryside that Kabul itself is now coming under rocket attack. Experts on the scene agree that any effort to “finish” will be a long-term proposition requiring at a minimum a vastly escalated commitment of U.S. troops.32
One cannot predict the future, but one can examine the past. For thirty years I have been writing about the persistence in America of a war mentality that, time after time, trumps reasonable policies of negotiation, and leads us further into armed conflict. This dominant mindset is not restricted to any single agency or cabal, but is rather the likely outcome of on-going tensions between hawks and doves in the internal politics of Washington.
If a container of rocks and gravel is shaken vigorously, the probability is that the gravel will gravitate towards the bottom, leaving the largest rocks at the top. There is an analogous probability that, in an on-going debate over engaging or withdrawing from a difficult military contest, the forces for engagement will come out on top, regardless of circumstances. Available military power tends to be used, and one of the most remarkable features of history since 1945 is that this tendency has not so far repeated itself with atomic weapons.
Let me explain this metaphor in more concrete detail. Progressive societies (in this era usually democracies) tend to expand their presence beyond their geographic boundaries. This expanded presence calls for new institutions, usually (like the CIA) free from democratic accountability. This accretion of unaccountable power, in what I have elsewhere called the deep state, disrupts the public state’s system of checks and balances which is the underpinning of sane, deliberative policy.
We might expect of progressive democracies that they would evolve towards more and more rational foreign policies. But because of the dialectic just described, what we see is the exact opposite – evolution towards foolish and sometimes disastrous engagements. When Britain became more democratic in the late 19th Century, it also initiated the Boer War, a war very suited to the private imperial needs of Cecil Rhodes, but irrelevant if not deleterious to the interests of the British people.33 Hitler’s dreams of a Third Reich, entailing a doomed repeat of Napoleon’s venture into the heart of Russia, suited the needs of the German industrialists who had financed the Nazis; but from the outset sane heads of the German military staff could foresee the coming disaster.
For over a half century now, beginning with Vietnam, unaccountable forces have been maneuvering America into unsustainable adventures on the Asian mainland. We now know that Kennedy did not intend ever to commit U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.34 But the fatal planning to expand the Vietnam War north of the 17th parallel was authorized in the last week of his aborted presidency, probably without his being aware.35 When elected, Jimmy Carter was determined to reduce the size and frequency of CIA covert operations.36 Yet his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, initiated maneuvers in Afghanistan that led to the largest CIA covert operation (and in my view, one of the most deleterious) of all time.37
Pages: 1 2
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Would They Be Planning to Use Troops Against Americans If They WEREN’T Stealing Our Money?
George Washington’s Blog
Wednesday, Dec 31, 2008
Political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso Charles Boehmer points out that “The military was not called out during the Great Depression….”Wednesday, Dec 31, 2008
So why is the military planning on how to crush civil protest in regards to the current economic crisis (see this, this, this, this, this and this)?
Is it because the theft - via “bailouts” and other hanky-panky by Treasury, the Fed and others - of hard-earned taxpayer wealth is
The other potential explanation is that the military has been told that this financial crisis could be much, much worse than the Great Depression.
So which is it? The obviousness of the theft or the severity of the crisis?
My guess . . . both.
Obama Seeks Bipartisanship; Republican National Committee Declares War (Brent Budowsky)
"Barack Obama will probably be tested by the Russians, but he is definitely being tested right now by the Republicans. While Obama seeks a bipartisan stimulus and decides whether to investigate issues such as torture and domestic spying, the Republican National Committee (RNC) discusses a sick and demented CD about "Barack the Magic Negro" and prepares to formally attack Bush, Republican leaders in Congress, Democratic leaders and Obama as socialists and oppose any economic aid to companies and seek to dramatically cut back any economic recovery program for the nation."
Will the RNC attack everyone in a radical, extreme and irresponsible effort to kill any significant economic program, attack everyone as socialists and intimidate Republican leaders in Congress into joining their ill-fated mission of economic destruction?"
My view is that torture fundamentally violates historic American notions of law and clear rules of international law and that what was done violates cardinal American principles that were honored from George Washington through Bill Clinton and accepted by every president and Congress until George W. Bush. The same is true for eavesdropping on a massive scale, in clear violation of the FISA law, without even any proof that our security was enhanced. "
Will the RNC attack everyone in a radical, extreme and irresponsible effort to kill any significant economic program, attack everyone as socialists and intimidate Republican leaders in Congress into joining their ill-fated mission of economic destruction?"
My view is that torture fundamentally violates historic American notions of law and clear rules of international law and that what was done violates cardinal American principles that were honored from George Washington through Bill Clinton and accepted by every president and Congress until George W. Bush. The same is true for eavesdropping on a massive scale, in clear violation of the FISA law, without even any proof that our security was enhanced. "
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
ER doctors: Police use excessive force
Emergency Medicine Journal
December 24, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a survey of a random sample of U.S. emergency physicians, virtually all said they believed that law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects.
The sample included 315 respondents. While 99.8 percent believed excessive force is used, almost as many (97.8 percent) reported that they had managed cases that they suspected or that the patient stated had involved excessive use of force by law enforcement officers.
Nearly two thirds (65.3 percent) estimated that they had treated two or more cases of suspected excessive use of force per year among their patients, according to a report of the survey published in the January 2009 issue of the Emergency Medicine Journal.
Dr. Jared Strote of the University of Washington, Seattle, and a multicenter team also found that emergency physicians at public teaching hospitals were roughly four times more likely to report managing cases of suspected use of excessive force than those at university or community teaching emergency departments.
Blunt trauma inflicted by fists or feet was the most common type of injury cited in cases of suspected use of excessive force, followed by “overly tight” handcuffs.
Most emergency physicians (71.2 percent) admitted that they did not report cases of suspected use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.
Read article
December 24, 2008
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a survey of a random sample of U.S. emergency physicians, virtually all said they believed that law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects.
The sample included 315 respondents. While 99.8 percent believed excessive force is used, almost as many (97.8 percent) reported that they had managed cases that they suspected or that the patient stated had involved excessive use of force by law enforcement officers.
Nearly two thirds (65.3 percent) estimated that they had treated two or more cases of suspected excessive use of force per year among their patients, according to a report of the survey published in the January 2009 issue of the Emergency Medicine Journal.
Dr. Jared Strote of the University of Washington, Seattle, and a multicenter team also found that emergency physicians at public teaching hospitals were roughly four times more likely to report managing cases of suspected use of excessive force than those at university or community teaching emergency departments.
Blunt trauma inflicted by fists or feet was the most common type of injury cited in cases of suspected use of excessive force, followed by “overly tight” handcuffs.
Most emergency physicians (71.2 percent) admitted that they did not report cases of suspected use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.
Read article
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Ron Paul: Fear Based Bailouts Constitute Economic Terrorism
Congressman warns that auto-bailout could lead directly to fascism in America
Texas Congressman Ron Paul has hit out at US monetary policy, warning that fear based politics are being used to promote the bailout culture in the same way they were used to sell the Iraq war. "Governments that want to take over, undermine our liberties and gain more power always use the fear factor. They did this leading up to the war in Iraq, they do it on foreign policy, now they’re doing it on monetary, economic and financial problems." Paul told the nationally syndicated Alex Jones show Wednesday.
"They do that all the time, that is their technique, always to build a tremendous fear in the hearts of the people. Terrorize the people and say that ‘we are your saviors and we’re the only ones that can take care of it’." The Congressman stated.
Paul pointed out that the use of the fear factor was never more evident than in the run up to the passage of the $750 billion bailout bill earlier this year when it emerged that representatives had been threatened with an economic crash and physical martial law in America.
When asked if this constituted economic terrorism, Paul replied "Of course it is, and those responsible should be held accountable."
The Congressman also warned that the bailout of the auto industry could have dire consequences.
"It is extremely dangerous because although we have been creeping in that direction, this is an endorsement of nationalization. If they keep token ownership with the corporations, which they probably will, then it’s called fascism." Paul said.
"I think everybody knows we’re in a crisis now and they have now gotten to the point where they don’t trust the government, which is healthy." The Congressman told listeners. "A lot of people are begging and pleading and they’re lining up. But the average guy outside of Washington, especially so many of the young people are realizing that this has all been a hoax and this is the time to really expose that hoax."
"We have a real opportunity to direct attention to the real culprit and that is those who control the monetary system. Those who counterfeit our money and cause the financial bubbles and then recessions, and now are working real hard on a depression." Paul continued.
"The only thing that can counteract this is a different philosophy. A convincing argument that free markets, sound money and no Federal Reserve and limited taxes, the things that made America great."
"The system that they are trying to patch together right now will not work. We don’t need more regulatory agencies, all we need is the enforcement of fraud laws." Paul concluded.
Listen to the full interview below:
‘Greek Syndrome’ is catching as youth take to streets
John Lichfield
London Independent
Saturday, Dec 20, 2008
With Europe, and the world, pitching headlong into a deep recession, the “Greek Syndrome”, as one French official calls it, was already being monitored with great care across the European Union. The attempt to politicise and link the disputes across EU frontiers may prove to be a random act of self-dramatisation by an isolated group on the Greek far left. But it does draw attention to the similarities - and many differences - between the simultaneous outbreaks of unrest in three EU countries.
Thousands of young Greeks have been rioting on and off for almost two weeks. They are protesting against the chaotic, and often corrupt, social and political system of a country still torn between European “modernity” and a muddled Balkan past. They can be said, in that sense, to be truly revolting.
The riots began with a mostly “anarchist” protest against the killing of a 15-year-old boy by police but spread to other left-wing groups, immigrants and at times, it seemed, almost every urban Greek aged between 18 and 30. The protesters claim that they belong to a sacrificed “[euro]600″ generation, doomed to work forever for low monthly salaries. French lycee (sixth-form) students took to the street in their tens of thousands this week and last to protest against modest, proposed changes in the school system and the “natural wastage” of a handful of teaching posts. In other words, they were engaged in a typical French revolution of modern times: a conservative-left-wing revolt, not for change but against it. The lycee students are, broadly, in favour of the status quo in schools, although they admit the cumbersome French education system does not serve them well. But behind the unrest lie three other factors: a deep disaffection from the French political system; a hostility to capitalism and “globalism” and the ever-simmering unrest in the poor, multiracial suburbs of French cities.
In Malmo on Thursday night, young people threw stones at police and set fire to cars and rubbish bins. This appears to have been mostly a local revolt by disaffected immigrant and second-generation immigrant youths, joined by leftist white youths, against the closure of an Islamic cultural centre. As in Greece and France, the Swedish authorities believe the troubles have been encouraged, and magnified, by political forces of the far left.
Full article here
London Independent
Saturday, Dec 20, 2008
Europe exists, it appears. If Greek students sneeze, or catch a whiff of tear-gas, young people take to the streets in France and now Sweden. Yesterday, masked youths threw two firebombs at the French Institute in Athens. Windows were smashed but the building was not seriously damaged. Then youths spray-painted two slogans on the building. One said, “Spark in Athens. Fire in Paris. Insurrection is coming”. The other read, “France, Greece, uprising everywhere”.
It was a calculated and violent attempt to link disparate youth protest movements. Links between protests in Greece and France - and, to a lesser degree, unrest in Sweden - may seem tenuous, even non-existent. But social and political ailments and their symptoms transmit as rapidly as influenza in the television, internet and text-message age.With Europe, and the world, pitching headlong into a deep recession, the “Greek Syndrome”, as one French official calls it, was already being monitored with great care across the European Union. The attempt to politicise and link the disputes across EU frontiers may prove to be a random act of self-dramatisation by an isolated group on the Greek far left. But it does draw attention to the similarities - and many differences - between the simultaneous outbreaks of unrest in three EU countries.
Thousands of young Greeks have been rioting on and off for almost two weeks. They are protesting against the chaotic, and often corrupt, social and political system of a country still torn between European “modernity” and a muddled Balkan past. They can be said, in that sense, to be truly revolting.
The riots began with a mostly “anarchist” protest against the killing of a 15-year-old boy by police but spread to other left-wing groups, immigrants and at times, it seemed, almost every urban Greek aged between 18 and 30. The protesters claim that they belong to a sacrificed “[euro]600″ generation, doomed to work forever for low monthly salaries. French lycee (sixth-form) students took to the street in their tens of thousands this week and last to protest against modest, proposed changes in the school system and the “natural wastage” of a handful of teaching posts. In other words, they were engaged in a typical French revolution of modern times: a conservative-left-wing revolt, not for change but against it. The lycee students are, broadly, in favour of the status quo in schools, although they admit the cumbersome French education system does not serve them well. But behind the unrest lie three other factors: a deep disaffection from the French political system; a hostility to capitalism and “globalism” and the ever-simmering unrest in the poor, multiracial suburbs of French cities.
In Malmo on Thursday night, young people threw stones at police and set fire to cars and rubbish bins. This appears to have been mostly a local revolt by disaffected immigrant and second-generation immigrant youths, joined by leftist white youths, against the closure of an Islamic cultural centre. As in Greece and France, the Swedish authorities believe the troubles have been encouraged, and magnified, by political forces of the far left.
Full article here
The Bill Nobody Noticed: National DNA Databank
Patty Donovan
Natural News
December 20, 2008
(NaturalNews) In April of 2008, President Bush signed into law S.1858 which allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. This was to be implemented within 6 months meaning that this collection is now being carried out. Congressman Ron Paul states that this bill is the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database.
S.1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is justified as a “national contingency plan” in that it represents preparation for any sort of public health emergency. The bill states that the federal government should “continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening” and “maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening… ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly”. Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests. Read the full bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xp…
Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care warns that this new law represents the beginning of nationwide genetic testing. Brase states that S.1858 and H.R. 3825, the House version of the bill, will:
• Establish a national list of genetic conditions for which newborns and children are to be tested.
• Establish protocols for the linking and sharing of genetic test results nationwide.
• Build surveillance systems for tracking the health status and health outcomes of individuals diagnosed at birth with a genetic defect or trait.
• Use the newborn screening program as an opportunity for government agencies to identify, list, and study “secondary conditions” of individuals and their families.
• Subject citizens to genetic research without their knowledge or consent.
Read her entire analysis of the implications of this bill here: http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/S_1858_NB… Brase states that under this bill, “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research.” All 50 states are now routinely providing results of genetic screenings to the Department of Homeland Security and this bill will establish the legality of that practice plus include DNA.
Ron Paul has also vigorously argued against this bill making the following comments before the US House of Representatives:
“I cannot support legislation…that exceeds the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. I must oppose it.”
“S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker, the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States. …”
“Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children, in fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a ‘public health’ disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of ‘emergency.”
http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/S_1858_NB…
http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/02…
Natural News
December 20, 2008
(NaturalNews) In April of 2008, President Bush signed into law S.1858 which allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. This was to be implemented within 6 months meaning that this collection is now being carried out. Congressman Ron Paul states that this bill is the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database.
S.1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is justified as a “national contingency plan” in that it represents preparation for any sort of public health emergency. The bill states that the federal government should “continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening” and “maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening… ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly”. Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests. Read the full bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xp…
Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care warns that this new law represents the beginning of nationwide genetic testing. Brase states that S.1858 and H.R. 3825, the House version of the bill, will:
• Establish a national list of genetic conditions for which newborns and children are to be tested.
• Establish protocols for the linking and sharing of genetic test results nationwide.
• Build surveillance systems for tracking the health status and health outcomes of individuals diagnosed at birth with a genetic defect or trait.
• Use the newborn screening program as an opportunity for government agencies to identify, list, and study “secondary conditions” of individuals and their families.
• Subject citizens to genetic research without their knowledge or consent.
Read her entire analysis of the implications of this bill here: http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/S_1858_NB… Brase states that under this bill, “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research.” All 50 states are now routinely providing results of genetic screenings to the Department of Homeland Security and this bill will establish the legality of that practice plus include DNA.
Ron Paul has also vigorously argued against this bill making the following comments before the US House of Representatives:
“I cannot support legislation…that exceeds the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. I must oppose it.”
“S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker, the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States. …”
“Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children, in fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a ‘public health’ disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of ‘emergency.”
http://www.cchconline.org/pdf/S_1858_NB…
http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/02…
INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING FOR MILITARY AND POLICE FORCES
By Greg Evensen
December 20, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
Intelligence comes in two distinct and uniquely critical components. The first is information—or intelligence—that comes from sources known to you as an investigator or intercepted sources that may not be known to you. The most critical intelligence sector is that of our own discerning creative minds. Together, these two arenas comprise the data mine that gives us a glimpse into the future. Military leaders and police officials know that this future depends solely on how we assess that data and our near miracle ability to shape outcomes by how we have collectively interpreted all of the “leads.” If we are able to process correctly, the police agency or forward military unit can deploy its forces based on qualified assumptions that have been drawn from the available “intelligence” and thus strike or defend effectively and efficiently.
Using this descriptive breakdown of the role of intelligence, let’s project into 2009, and see what type of outcomes we might expect over the next few months concerning the economic and political events here in the United States.
Let’s begin with what we do know based on existing information and substantiated reports from across the country. The executive branch of government assuming power on 20 January 2009 is comprised of the most socialist mindset since the Roosevelt years. The cabinet and department executives reflect a bias against historical constitutional precepts, are continuing programs or are set on implementing new ones that will devastate the Bill of Rights (what is left of it). They are viciously against the ownership of personal defense weapons and are morally degenerate in their rabid support of same-sex marriage, abortion, and homosexuality as a civil right, as well as promoters of open borders with Mexico. This hideous and brashly anti-traditional/historical America mindset in Washington has completed the destruction of the bridge between our Godly heritage and the present day four-lane interstate journey into oblivion and destruction.
Most of America has ridden this express train to hell, while listening to I-Pods, lost on the cell phone, or addicted to demonically inspired virtual games on the ever present lap-top. Family discussions around the dinner table, parent involvement with their children’s school and church, horseback camping trips and Christ honoring Christmas gatherings, have given way to illicit sex parties, including pre-teen homosexual experimentation encouraged by psychiatrists, cheating and plagiarism rings in the public schools, gang affiliation in record numbers, drug smuggling and dope dealing in every community in the country.
What then does our intelligence tell us? Based on these known facts, we can conclude that America’s days as the “moral leader” to the world are long over. Spiritually, we are worse off than the most backward African nation that still worships rocks and trees. We have offended the true God of the universe and are next in line for utter destruction. That fate, I believe, is well underway.
Using this descriptive breakdown of the role of intelligence, let’s project into 2009, and see what type of outcomes we might expect over the next few months concerning the economic and political events here in the United States.
Let’s begin with what we do know based on existing information and substantiated reports from across the country. The executive branch of government assuming power on 20 January 2009 is comprised of the most socialist mindset since the Roosevelt years. The cabinet and department executives reflect a bias against historical constitutional precepts, are continuing programs or are set on implementing new ones that will devastate the Bill of Rights (what is left of it). They are viciously against the ownership of personal defense weapons and are morally degenerate in their rabid support of same-sex marriage, abortion, and homosexuality as a civil right, as well as promoters of open borders with Mexico. This hideous and brashly anti-traditional/historical America mindset in Washington has completed the destruction of the bridge between our Godly heritage and the present day four-lane interstate journey into oblivion and destruction.
Most of America has ridden this express train to hell, while listening to I-Pods, lost on the cell phone, or addicted to demonically inspired virtual games on the ever present lap-top. Family discussions around the dinner table, parent involvement with their children’s school and church, horseback camping trips and Christ honoring Christmas gatherings, have given way to illicit sex parties, including pre-teen homosexual experimentation encouraged by psychiatrists, cheating and plagiarism rings in the public schools, gang affiliation in record numbers, drug smuggling and dope dealing in every community in the country.
What then does our intelligence tell us? Based on these known facts, we can conclude that America’s days as the “moral leader” to the world are long over. Spiritually, we are worse off than the most backward African nation that still worships rocks and trees. We have offended the true God of the universe and are next in line for utter destruction. That fate, I believe, is well underway.
Even if you dismiss the spiritual component, the results of our moral disintegration have brought about its own unavoidable chain of events. Where moral character is absent, corruption, theft, sexual immorality, lying, selfish and traitorous conduct rushes in to fill the void. This is abundantly evident on every hand in disease ridden America. The family has disintegrated, churches have fallen away from God’s truth, government has failed, banks have crumbled, credit has replaced “money,” debt replaced “money” and “money” replaced gold and silver. Cowardice has replaced confidence, incompetency has replaced competency, and mistrust has taken over trust in the law and law officers. Virtue in the mission of the military has been replaced with unending wars and police actions by a now mercenary role for our soldiers who have been prostituted to serve the whore of government.
Any intelligence operation will predict that this vast negative change in standards results in the defeat of the nation from within. It cannot be avoided and its outcomes are unavoidably predetermined. Such corruption then begins to feed on itself. In order to protect the viability of the continuing operation of such a flawed entity, a self-defense mechanism must then be established to insure that the antithesis of the corrupted state (a morally virtuous state) cannot be reinstituted.
In the case of present day America, this means the establishment of a previously unheard of and unneeded police state apparatus. This internal security behemoth has been built to protect the unconstitutional and corrupted national government. This new Gestapo like state security network (homeland security) is in a continuing state of expansion and invasion of the private lives of Americans. It MUST do so, because it fears freedom, honest citizens, and clean government. Only corrupted officials need constant machine gun bearing black-clad killers in their employment. Conversely, free, honest, government works shoulder to shoulder with its citizens in an open concept where common sense and common integrity rules.
Any intelligence operation will predict that this vast negative change in standards results in the defeat of the nation from within. It cannot be avoided and its outcomes are unavoidably predetermined. Such corruption then begins to feed on itself. In order to protect the viability of the continuing operation of such a flawed entity, a self-defense mechanism must then be established to insure that the antithesis of the corrupted state (a morally virtuous state) cannot be reinstituted.
In the case of present day America, this means the establishment of a previously unheard of and unneeded police state apparatus. This internal security behemoth has been built to protect the unconstitutional and corrupted national government. This new Gestapo like state security network (homeland security) is in a continuing state of expansion and invasion of the private lives of Americans. It MUST do so, because it fears freedom, honest citizens, and clean government. Only corrupted officials need constant machine gun bearing black-clad killers in their employment. Conversely, free, honest, government works shoulder to shoulder with its citizens in an open concept where common sense and common integrity rules.
Now our intelligence gathering abilities will conclude that in order to staff such a police state army, men and women who have themselves been corrupted will be the most likely to be recruited and serve successfully. To be successful, they must voluntarily agree to obey all rules and direct orders issued from the corrupted police or general staffs which they serve. The future can be predicted then, that at some point, those who have sworn to obey the corrupted state police apparatus will come into direct conflict with those who have maintained their personal morality, dignity, independence, and allegiance to God and the Republic. There can be NO OTHER outcome. There is no road for compromise or “sit-down” resolution. The ONLY outcome is conflict. The state will maintain its “us against them” mentality and the freedom fighters will have no choice but to survive by fighting back. This scenario has been repeated throughout all of history on every continent with the same inevitable, predictable ending.
The maverick or rogue element in all of this has begun to emerge in a way that gives us some pause for hope, however. Vast amounts of information through patriot radio, constitutionally sensitive internet news services and courageous speakers across the country are bringing true and accurate facts to millions of citizens and of course police officers and armed forces at home and in theater. Because of these collective efforts, officers at all levels are being made aware of the real situation facing all of us and how they should respond—or not—to orders that will be coming to them.
The final segment of this article is directed to police and military officers at all levels. It is as though roll call was underway and the orders of the day issued. I ask that you read this carefully and let it become a part of your standard operating procedures manual of the heart. Your response to this will help decide the ultimate fate of our nation. As sworn officers and oath bound military men and women, you are under the lawful order domain that was codified for all time during the Nuremburg Tribunals of 1945-48. That body decreed to all men and women under arms that merely obeying orders of any kind was not an affirmative defense for actions taken in combat or against civilian populations. The benchmark that was established was, if the “order” was criminal in nature or “required” the affected forces to commit an act they knew was or suspected to be criminal in nature, they had the absolute right and duty to disobey that order and in some cases seek the immediate arrest and prosecution of the ordering authority. That operational standard still exists and will be used should the occasion arise in the near future. Let me be VERY clear. If a police officer from any jurisdiction, private contractors hired to act as agents of the police, or a military member acting in an “official” capacity should carry out unlawful, unconstitutional, or unethical “orders” that violates the effected person’s lawful rights, safety, security, or freedom, then the offending “agent” of government is liable in court both criminally and civilly. In the worse case situation, the offending agent may be at the mercy of citizens who will not tolerate such abuse.
Resistance to such government actions by the citizenry in these situations for the preservation of life and peace is therefore justified in the extreme.
We are left then with this “future” to contemplate. Either intelligence will dictate that this nation’s constitutional laws will be followed under all circumstances, or there will be severe consequences both immediate and long term. Be it known that NO police or military authority is exempt from safeguarding the American people from violations of their absolute rights and that all such authority must be lawful, constitutional, humane and fair.
The maverick or rogue element in all of this has begun to emerge in a way that gives us some pause for hope, however. Vast amounts of information through patriot radio, constitutionally sensitive internet news services and courageous speakers across the country are bringing true and accurate facts to millions of citizens and of course police officers and armed forces at home and in theater. Because of these collective efforts, officers at all levels are being made aware of the real situation facing all of us and how they should respond—or not—to orders that will be coming to them.
The final segment of this article is directed to police and military officers at all levels. It is as though roll call was underway and the orders of the day issued. I ask that you read this carefully and let it become a part of your standard operating procedures manual of the heart. Your response to this will help decide the ultimate fate of our nation. As sworn officers and oath bound military men and women, you are under the lawful order domain that was codified for all time during the Nuremburg Tribunals of 1945-48. That body decreed to all men and women under arms that merely obeying orders of any kind was not an affirmative defense for actions taken in combat or against civilian populations. The benchmark that was established was, if the “order” was criminal in nature or “required” the affected forces to commit an act they knew was or suspected to be criminal in nature, they had the absolute right and duty to disobey that order and in some cases seek the immediate arrest and prosecution of the ordering authority. That operational standard still exists and will be used should the occasion arise in the near future. Let me be VERY clear. If a police officer from any jurisdiction, private contractors hired to act as agents of the police, or a military member acting in an “official” capacity should carry out unlawful, unconstitutional, or unethical “orders” that violates the effected person’s lawful rights, safety, security, or freedom, then the offending “agent” of government is liable in court both criminally and civilly. In the worse case situation, the offending agent may be at the mercy of citizens who will not tolerate such abuse.
Resistance to such government actions by the citizenry in these situations for the preservation of life and peace is therefore justified in the extreme.
We are left then with this “future” to contemplate. Either intelligence will dictate that this nation’s constitutional laws will be followed under all circumstances, or there will be severe consequences both immediate and long term. Be it known that NO police or military authority is exempt from safeguarding the American people from violations of their absolute rights and that all such authority must be lawful, constitutional, humane and fair.
That any officer of the law or of the military have as their first priority, the intelligent and judicious use of their power, and the full knowledge that the Republic of the United States and its people will hold them accountable and responsible for their individual and collective actions in defense of the American people during times of crises from whatever cause.
Be it further understood, that no President, General, Judge, Governor, Attorney General, law enforcement official, legislator, public official at any level or animal control officer may violate civil rights, the Bill of Rights, the law, constitutional authority, or any other covenant with the American people for any reason including open warfare. Any such violation will be considered a violation of the official’s oath of office and will be subject to civil and or criminal penalties. Good intelligence is a useful tool in keeping the peace, safeguarding the general population and using the law for the purposes it was intended. Common sense is the gatekeeper for those laws and the maintenance of civilization. Together we must insure that both intelligence and common sense survive any application or misapplication of the law in any form including that of martial law. No other course is acceptable. No other course is lawful. No other course will insure that America survives its present economic and political calamities without resorting to all out conflict between its citizens and those in authority. Our future depends on the intelligent use of our intelligence, from whatever source we take it, and how we use it. We expect, indeed demand that those in authority begin at once to exercise intelligent strength of character and the wisdom to know from whence comes their strength.
© 2008 Greg Evensen - All Rights Reserved
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Rahm’s Plan for Mandatory Service
There has been a small uproar around Obama’s call for a “civilian national security force” especially one “that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the military. But many have said that these words were taken out of context. If you read the whole speech, they argue, it is clear that he just wants to expand the Peace Corp a little bit.
Similarly, there was a mild uproar about his call for mandatory service from students, but many said that the programs were never intended to be mandatory. The college program was optional community service in exchange for a larger education credit, and the high-school one was no different from adding an art class or something to the public high-school curriculum. Obama initially called both mandatory on his change.gov website, but after the buzz began he changed the wording and removed several sections of the site.
But now there is new evidence that the critics are right. He does favor mandatory service and it might be worse than we thought. He has chosen Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel wrote a book called The Plan in 2006. On page 60-65 of the book Rahm calls for universal conscription of 18-24 year olds for civilian service in order to prepare for a potential terrorist attack.
That Obama has chosen this man as his chief of staff should give anyone pause. This man has a “Plan” for the country that involves training our youth like soldiers, and calls upon “a new patriotism that brings us together again in a common mission” for his plan which will “unite us in a higher national purpose.”
Similarly, there was a mild uproar about his call for mandatory service from students, but many said that the programs were never intended to be mandatory. The college program was optional community service in exchange for a larger education credit, and the high-school one was no different from adding an art class or something to the public high-school curriculum. Obama initially called both mandatory on his change.gov website, but after the buzz began he changed the wording and removed several sections of the site.
But now there is new evidence that the critics are right. He does favor mandatory service and it might be worse than we thought. He has chosen Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel wrote a book called The Plan in 2006. On page 60-65 of the book Rahm calls for universal conscription of 18-24 year olds for civilian service in order to prepare for a potential terrorist attack.
All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service.In a 2006 radio interview Rahm explains more about the program. He speaks about the dangers of a chemical attack and about the wonderful common experience that all Americans could have by being drafted for 3 months into a civilian national security force training program. He seems to be using the fear of attack to justify drafting all youth into a militaristic civilian security force – something more reminiscent of a dictatorship than a democracy. And all of his calls to unity and common experience only confirm his preference for nationalism or collectivism over individualism and freedom.
That Obama has chosen this man as his chief of staff should give anyone pause. This man has a “Plan” for the country that involves training our youth like soldiers, and calls upon “a new patriotism that brings us together again in a common mission” for his plan which will “unite us in a higher national purpose.”
Sunday, November 9, 2008
More Ominous NorthCom News
From Henry Makow, PhD
11-9-8
Hello Henry,
Have you heard of "Vigilant Shield 08"? It`s a five days exercice planned by the Northcom/Norad to simulate a state of Martial Law (!) due to a major catastrophe such as a "terrorist attack" in the USA: http://www.northcom.mil/News/2007/083007.html
The "Vigilant Shield 08" was scheduled for the period of October 15-20 2007 but was postponed and is going to start on November 12 2007. It will last until November 18 and its codename was switched to "Vigilant Shield 09": http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/110508.html
No official reason was given as to why the original dates of this mystery national secutity exercice were changed. Lou Dobbs from the CNN has also commented on the subject: "Lou Dobbs: Major Public Concerns Of Martial Law In The U.S. & Army Denies Claims" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBaxm2oIHk).
We have to remember that an elite brigade was recently repatriated in the USA from Iraq and placed under the command of the... Northcom:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has asked the government for information on these military deployment within U.S. borders but didn`t received any satisfactory answer until today: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/37274prs20081021.html
It`s worth to remember that the 9/11 "terrorist attack" happened precisely the day an anti-terrorist exercice ivolved the US Air Force so that New York and Washington were practically deprived of their protecting combat jets... We also remember that the 7/7 "terrorist attack" in London happened precisely the day an anti-terrorist exercice was on in the area... What is going to happen now? All what is known from the Northcom is that the projected exercice beginning on November 18 will involve the simulation of three simultaneous nuclear explosions on the US territory... What is your opinion on that, Henry?
Be well,
xxxx
______
Henry
--------------------------------------
www.henrymakow.com
www.cruelhoax.ca
11-9-8
Hello Henry,
Have you heard of "Vigilant Shield 08"? It`s a five days exercice planned by the Northcom/Norad to simulate a state of Martial Law (!) due to a major catastrophe such as a "terrorist attack" in the USA: http://www.northcom.mil/News/2007/083007.html
The "Vigilant Shield 08" was scheduled for the period of October 15-20 2007 but was postponed and is going to start on November 12 2007. It will last until November 18 and its codename was switched to "Vigilant Shield 09": http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/110508.html
No official reason was given as to why the original dates of this mystery national secutity exercice were changed. Lou Dobbs from the CNN has also commented on the subject: "Lou Dobbs: Major Public Concerns Of Martial Law In The U.S. & Army Denies Claims" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBaxm2oIHk).
We have to remember that an elite brigade was recently repatriated in the USA from Iraq and placed under the command of the... Northcom:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has asked the government for information on these military deployment within U.S. borders but didn`t received any satisfactory answer until today: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/37274prs20081021.html
It`s worth to remember that the 9/11 "terrorist attack" happened precisely the day an anti-terrorist exercice ivolved the US Air Force so that New York and Washington were practically deprived of their protecting combat jets... We also remember that the 7/7 "terrorist attack" in London happened precisely the day an anti-terrorist exercice was on in the area... What is going to happen now? All what is known from the Northcom is that the projected exercice beginning on November 18 will involve the simulation of three simultaneous nuclear explosions on the US territory... What is your opinion on that, Henry?
Be well,
xxxx
______
Henry
--------------------------------------
www.henrymakow.com
www.cruelhoax.ca
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Civilian Inmate Labor Programs Are Now Mainstream.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Civilian Inmate Labor Program is a program of the United States Army provided by Army Regulation 210-35[1]. The regulation, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid act revision" in January 2005; it provides policy for the creation of labor programs and prison camps on Army installations. The labor would be provided by persons under the supervision of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Labor programs
Labor programs set forth by the Civilian Inmate Labor Program regulation involve the use of minimum and low security inmates from facilities under the control of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, with a few apparent exceptions for State-held and locally-held inmates, on installations controlled by the Army.
The regulation states that labor programs benefit the Army and the corrections facilities by supplying "a source of labor at no direct cost to the Army," giving "meaningful work to inmates" and alleviation to "overcrowding in nearby corrections facilities" and by making use of otherwise unused land and buildings.
The regulation indicates that the inmates could perform labor as allowed by 18 USC 4125(A)[2].
[edit] Prison camps
The regulation also sets forth policy for the creation of prison camps on Army installations. These would be used to keep inmates of the labor programs resident on the installations.
In January 2006, Kellogg, Brown and Root reported that they had received a contract from the Department of Homeland Security to expand ICE DRO facilities "in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."[3] A February news article comments that the "new programs" mentioned could include the Civilian Inmate Labour Program.[4] ICE has "joint federal facilities" with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.[5]
See also
External links
- ^ "AR 210-35 Civilian Inmate Labor Program" (PDF) (2004). Retrieved on 2006-03-09.
- ^ "18 USC TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE" (text) (2001). Retrieved on 2006-03-09.
- ^ Hunt, Katherine (2006). "KBR awarded Homeland Security contract worth up to $385M". Retrieved on 2006-03-09.
- ^ Parry, Nat (2006). "Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'". Retrieved on 2006-03-09.
- ^ "Office of Detention and Removal (DRO)" (2006). Retrieved on 2006-03-09.
 | This United States Army article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)