Tragedy and Consequences of Fascism

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In the U.S. if you're not rich you're screwed. To top it off, the filthy rich --the ruling "one percent" wants to turn over your social security to the big banks. Americans have not confronted the fact that 'privatizing Social Security' equals giving your money to big banksters, the same big banksters who engineered the last depression. Alas -the GOP scheme to privatize Social Security is either a heist or a gift, depending upon whether your are for it or against it.

With this gift/booty, the big banksters will invest and/or speculate with your monies offshore and international money markets. Not a single job will be created. Not one! Rather --the effect will be the loss of U.S. jobs just as there has been a loss of U.S. jobs under every GOP President since World War II.

I am hard pressed to name a single instance in history when a GOP tax cut or big business tax cut benefiting only the upper classes has EVER created ao much as one job. In fact, the GOP destroys jobs. Every GOP tax cut or other largesse has resulted in declines of both GDP and job creation. To be perfectly clear that is not just a slow down in growth; it is a real decline in job creation itself. Recessions/depressions are even worse. Growth does not merely slow down; rather --economies begin to shrink. Jobs disappear. Economies contract. That any American believes the GOP line dumped on them proves that American education system is a dismal and utter failure --especially with respect to economics.

Texas is the fascist 'lab' experiment which confirms me. Under recent GOP governors, high school graduations have declined. Only corporate prisons benefited from the inevitable rise in crime, most tragically murder and armed robbery.

At the same time, Texas is a nightmare vision of the future that awaits us all. Big corporations have robotized many jobs; the labor movement has been finished since Ronald Reagan waged war against labor and won. Ironically, as jobs became increasingly technical and/or high tech, education, though it has become even more important, declined. The GOP doesn't care. In fact, that was the GOP plan. Sure enough --Texas ranks dead last nationwide in high school graduations. As a result crime --especially murder and armed robbery --has increased.

Who benefits from rising crime?

Another result: Texas leads the nation in executions, a result which the GOP/right wing extremists who run the state seem to enjoy. It's perverted. Who benefits from this epidemic of deliberate incompetence? The corporate run prison system, that's who!

The prisons are no longer run by state. All very high security, high tech affairs, the prisons are owned by huge and growing corporations. They have formed a fascist partnership with Herrs George Bush Sr and his successor Rick Perry, dubbed 'Mr Hair Club for Men' by the late Mollie Ivins. The state lets contracts to their corporate sponsors in the prison business. And what a lucrative business it is! Certainly, with Texas education hitting rock bottom the warehousing of people is a growth industry. Given the 'circle jerk' nature of the Texas government and the corporate prisons, it is reasonable to conclude that the neglect of Texas education is deliberate. It has become GOP policy. Crime is a last desperate resort for increasing numbers who are deprived of education, opportunity and hope! This is Judge Dredd come true. And Texas is the lab experiment.

In the meantime, those landing high paying, corporate jobs persist in their delusions, primarily that they are rich! So they believe! Believing thus, they have assumed huge mortgages for pretentious houses most often behind layers of security --if not moats. This is the case in almost every 'affluent' Houston suburb. I call it modern feudalism but for the fact that feudal 'lords' had a much greater sense of responsibility to serfs. The psychopathic robber barons of Houston do not give a shit! The walls and moats are designed to keep you and the rest of the the riff raff out and, in Houston of late, anyone not among the top 20 percent in wealth and income is riff raff. They have much in common with Scrooge who said: "Let them die and decrease the surplus population!"

The Government's Own 'stats' Indict the GOP

Official stats bear me out. Wealth and income disparities increased significantly, alarmingly under every GOP administration since World War II. The administration of Ronald Reagan was the most blatant 'wealth grab' in U.S. history. Only the top twenty percent benefited from his infamous tax cut. Every other segment became increasingly poorer. A picture of the future was a 'depression' of some two year in which even boom town Houston suffered. Thousands of Houston jobless lost their homes and were reduced to living in tent cities. Many another lived under bridges and overpasses. I saw this for myself.

Bush Jr has apparently finished what Reagan had begun. Now --just one percent of the population owns more than the rest of us combined. Everyone else is losing ground. Should the GOP get control of the nation, that mere one percent will surely shrink yet again, perhaps to just one half of one percent or even less. It's just a matter of moving the decimal place at this point.
This is not what statisticians call a 'normal distribution' curve. It is, rather, an ever steeper curve representing a non-elite class growing exponentially, an elite class whose numbers are increasingly smaller, by now approaching zero. Any point on this curve reveals the rate at which the nation's wealth is literally transferred upward. This is the result of deliberate and official policy. It is, in fact, a payoff to the top 1 percent of the total population.

This is not a policy! This is war!

This is a culture war, declared upon the people by what is often called a 'ruling elite'. Given the trends i.e, the ever shrinking percentage benefiting from robber baron tax cuts, even those currently among the elite should beware. They are next!

Everyone's wealth can be transferred upward to the ever dwindling few. It will be done with the Orwellian use of the term 'tax cut'. Never in history have the results of these 'tax cuts' been so ruinous and devastating. For proof of that see the CIA's own "World Fact Book".

Under Reagan, even boom-town residents (Houston) had been reduced to living in tents. Some never fully recovered economically. I don't even like to think about what new horrors may be inflicted if the psychopaths should continue to dominate American political life.

My conclusions are based entirely on official statistics and the results that I witnessed for myself. I just recently watched an independent film by director/producder John "Carpenter. The film is 'They Live'. If the U.S. is not there, it is getting there and very, very quickly.
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Why China Owns US

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The U.S. used to make things and export them. Some said that the U.S. fed the world from a mid-western 'bread-basket'. At the same time, the U.S. had a viable labor movement which seems to have simply withered away with the decline of American industries and productivity. After all, a nation cannot limp along on one leg. It was the Reagan regime which cut off the labor leg. Amputated, we have not gone far but backward, at best, in circles.

That the U.S. trails the world is proven by the CIA's own 'World Fact Book' which lists the U.S. on bottom with the World's Largest Negative Current Account Balance. Our benefactor/owner, China, is on top with the World's Largest Positive Current Account Balance. Simply that is because the China makes things and thus employs its population. China sells those things to us (the U.S.) but only because it props up the U.S. dollar in order to get it back via sales. It's a scheme that will eventually collapse.

The U.S., I seem to recall, once led the world in steel manufacturing, and, I believe automotive manufacturing as well. The US boasted a viable electronics industry but that is now found in Japan and elsewhere and throughout Asia. We lead in NONE of those areas today. China even sends IT pros to America where they took those jobs from Americans. The collapse of U.S. industry must be traced to Nixon's visit to China. I spoke with Bush Sr but could never pin the bastard down. I still want to know: what DEALS were cut and why?

The Chinese outsmarted both Bush and Nixon. The big factor is 'oil'. The U.S. used to produce it but reached a point at which 'secondary recovery' was no longer profitable. The vast oil fields of Texas are but a memory. The Chinese, by contrast, planned ahead.

The invasion of Iraq was never about Saddam's moribund or completely non-existent WMD program and less about fighting "International terrorism", a strawman! It was about gaining strategic control of Iraq's oil reserves for the purpose of propping up the dollar as the currency of choice in the critical international oil market.

If you doubt this, I suggest you consider the reasons Dick Cheney convened and conspired with his so-called 'Energy Task Force', a 'task force' which literally carved up the oil fields of Iraq between them. A war followed! A 'coincidence' if you are uniformed and/or naive, a 'conspiracy of rich men to procure their commodities' if you happen to be a realist and are likewise informed about the oil industry.

"I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth."

- Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

Why have U.S. officials allowed our nation to become a mere vassal state of China? I cannot think of an 'innocent' or productive reason Nixon by way of his surrogates (including Bush Sr) would want to 'export' our industries to China. Of the many FX of those deals was that the traditional 'Democratic' base --LABOR --was essentially put out of business, made irrelevant. I have called it The GOP 'Scorched Earth' Policy. Even I have trouble believing that Nixon/Bush/Reagan could be so unimaginably evil. But the facts, the record says they were.

Now --why does China own us? The trend began with overtures to China by Nixon, Bush. I spoke with both Bush Sr and Milton Friedman about this back in the late 70s. Neither man was coherent. The CIA'S World Fact Book confirms my fears though neither Bush nor Friedman wanted to talk about it. I was right. Friedman denied that the US was exporting jobs but the record proves that that is precisely the effect. In the meantime, China supports the dollar only because if it does so we may buy the 'product' that they produce.

In the meantime, US productivity vis a vis the rest of the world has 'tanked' as evidenced by our prominent position on the very bottom of the CIA's World Fact Book. Last time I checked just one percent of the population owned more than some 90 percent of the rest of us combined. It is significant that as this result was coming about, US labor declined concurrently with US productivity. See the CIA'S World Fact Book which lists the US having the world's largest NEGATIVE Current Acct Balance.

The Wal-Mart effect targets US workers and manufacturing. Its most pernicious effects are seen in clothing --low-cost goods with a hidden higher price: lower wages, lost jobs. Underlying every sector, however, are US trade deficits benefiting American consumers but only so long as they have jobs themselves.

As has been the trend at least since the regime of Ronald Reagan, manufacturing suffers most as Wal-Mart grows more intrusive, exploiting the trade deficit with its own undervalued currency. In effect, American consumers have under-written China's economic boom. What have we earned in return? Simply, the utter contempt shown us by China --it's government and its people.

By 2007, some 133,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost in the US; sixty-eight percent were the direct result of Wal-Mart's "partnership" with China. The effect continues to devastate US workers, the US economy overall.

The US-China trade deficits amounted to more than $1 trillion in US Treasury bills some three years ago. To be honest, I dare not look at what that figure may be today. Thus, China has rehabilitated its own economy on US backs.

It should come as no surprise that American jobs are exported during GOP regimes. The official record proves that it has been going on for awhile now.

Job Growth Per Year Under Most Recent Presidents

Johnson 3.8%
Carter 3.1
Clinton 2.4
Kennedy 2.3
Nixon 2.3
Reagan 2.1
Bush 0.6

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey

I could forgive a lapse here and there, a random failure, an 'Act of God', bad luck or misfortune, perhaps, a witches curse in which only one party fucks up so consistently. But, alas, the more rational explanation is not to be found in our stars, witches brews, Tarot Cards or random incompetence. None of those are to be blamed. We screwed up.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Cassius, Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

Moreover, it is not China's fault that Richard Nixon, George Bush Sr, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were either stupid or venal or both! It is not China's fault that these crooks and/or liars were willing to sell out the soul of our nation. It is the fault of a system of our creation, in which the GOP, most prominently, made a Faustian bargain with a war machine that has reduced the U.S. to the status of an impotent, bloated empire. We are, like Rome, whose currency was worthless and whose teeming masses could not be fed anything better than bread thrown them at a 'circus nor find jobs but that of Legionaire. It was not glory but plunder that defined the fall of Rome. It is not glory but bankruptcy and vassal state status that defines the fall of the Great American Empire!

Budget Deficits: The GOP Owns Them

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Why We Must Restore the 'Fairness Doctrine'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Restoring the 'Fairness Doctrine' is an important first step in taking back media from the likes of Fox, Bill O'Reilly and the legion of paid liars, pundits and press agents for the corporate 'media-ocracy'. Ronald Reagan stole the 'public airwaves' from you and, since that time about six or seven huge corporations have dominated the American media --possibly that of the world. When once you had a voice, now you have none but your favorite message board. Big corporate media dictates the topic of debate and the rules.

The Fairness Doctrine had required broadcasters to devote air time to the discussion of 'controversial matters of public interest'. To maintain a 'license' broadcasters were required to 'air' opposing and contrasting opinions and viewpoints. Given wide latitude, TV and radio outlets really had little to complain about.

The Fairness Doctrine was formally adopted in 1949 but repealed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan’s pro-big business FCC. The doctrine can be traced back to the early days of broadcast regulation and was the 'teeth' in the federal law that affirmed the public ownership of the 'airwaves'.

Your right to challenge the licenses of abusive outlets is now severely restrained or non-existent. Because there is no real competition, 'big media' can lie to you, slant the news, fill up air time with bullshit and Billo and jack up the rates on air time and other advertising. 'Fair and balanced' is bunkum and bullshit! What you really get are corporate talking points, Wolf Blitzer cliches and banalities passed off as 'analysis'. Because they have been brainwashed, millions don't even know that they've been brainwashed.

There is precedent for a 'people's revolution' that will take back our media.

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

--U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.

The American media has failed us. We expected no better from Fox. It is CBS, the network of Ed Murrow, that has been most disappointing. We want 'our' media back from the likes of Clear Channel, Fox, Sinclair and the other huge corporations.

It's bad enough that Fox tells deliberate lies; it is even worse that they make billions doing it.

The domination of media and thus debate itself might have been foreseen. Ronald Reagan and his partners in crime were allowed to get away with that amounts to the 'legalized' theft of your airwaves. Fox is lying on your airwaves. As the fraudulent nature of Bush's administration crumbled, it had been hoped that the American media would take a cue from one of its pioneers. The standard Murrow set is yet to be lived up to.

It is not surprising to learn that R. Murdoch adored Ronald Reagan. Reagan presided over the "de-regulation" of the media which made possible Murdoch's rise to media prominence in the US. There was a time when broadcast outlets operated from a legal premise that had been established by the Federal Communications Act of 1934 that the "public" owns the airwaves. Later, in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine limited the power of media corporations' control over communications systems. Media were required to serve "the public interest, convenience, or necessity." Congress mandated the new FCC - created in the act - set aside certain frequencies for educational use. It was this provision that made it possible for many to get real broadcast experience and a college education as well.

As Ronald Reagan reversed regulations and systematically demolished media restraints, media regulation all but stopped in the early 1980s. Later, In 1987, the first Bush administration went after the Fairness Doctrine. In the case of Meredith Corp. v. FCC, the courts ruled that the FCC need not enforce the so-called "fairness doctrine". It was a green light to demagogues like Rush Limbaugh.

When the Sinclair Broadcast Group retreated from pre-election plans to force its 62 television stations to preempt prime-time programming in favor of airing the blatantly anti–John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal, the reversal wasn’t triggered by a concern for fairness: Sinclair back-pedaled because its stock was tanking. The staunchly conservative broadcaster’s plan had provoked calls for sponsor boycotts, and Wall Street saw a company that was putting politics ahead of profits. Sinclair’s stock declined by nearly 17 percent before the company announced it would air a somewhat more balanced news program in place of the documentary ( Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04).

But if fairness mattered little to Sinclair, the news that a corporation that controlled more TV licenses than any other could put the publicly owned airwaves to partisan use sparked discussion of fairness across the board, from media democracy activists to television industry executives.

Variety (10/25/04) underlined industry concerns in a report suggesting that Sinclair’s partisanship was making other broadcasters nervous by fueling “anti-consolidation forces” and efforts to bring back the FCC’s defunct Fairness Doctrine:

Sinclair could even put the Fairness Doctrine back in play, a rule established in 1949 to require that the networks—all three of them—air all sides of issues. The doctrine was abandoned in the 1980s with the proliferation of cable, leaving citizens with little recourse over broadcasters that misuse the public airwaves, except to oppose the renewal of licenses.

The Sinclair controversy brought discussion of the Fairness Doctrine back to news columns ( Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04; L.A. Times, 10/24/04) and opinion pages ( Portland Press Herald, 10/24/04; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10/22/04) across the country. Legal Times (11/15/04) weighed in with an in-depth essay headlined: “A Question of Fair Air Play: Can Current Remedies for Media Bias Handle Threats Like Sinclair’s Aborted Anti-Kerry Program?”

Sinclair’s history of one-sided editorializing and right-wing water-carrying, which long preceded its Stolen Honor ploy ( Extra!, 11–12/04), puts it in the company of political talk radio, where right-wing opinion is the rule, locally and nationally. Together, they are part of a growing trend that sees movement conservatives and Republican partisans using the publicly owned airwaves as a political megaphone—one that goes largely unanswered by any regular opposing perspective. It’s an imbalance that begs for a remedy.

--The Fairness Doctrine: How we lost it, and why we need it back

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was sold as a means of opening up competition in the communications market. The opposite turned out to have been the effect. What followed was a wave of mergers that decreased competition. The media is now dominated by a handful of souless conglomerates like Fox. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is another case of political "bait and switch".

In 1934, our government had said that the "airwaves" belonged not to the big corporations or to the government but to the people themselves. We want it back!

We've always known that the Fox network "slanted" the news. But that's not all. They make it up!

I would like to know what's in it for Rupert Murdoch to preside over a news organization that manufactures - full cloth - phony news stories. What is Murdoch's specific connection to the Bush crime syndicate? What is the bigger story --the story about how the American media devolved from giants like Murrow, Cronkite and Severeid to the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity? How did we get here?

The use of the term 'de-regulation' to characterize the government theft and subsequent transfer of your airwaves is 'Orwellian', a tactic intended to hide the real intent. The government of the US literally stole your airwaves and transferred ownership of them to right wing liars and demagogues like the Fox Network, Sinclair et al --big corporations where the likes of Bill O'Reilly and other right-wing shills had merely to wag an accusing finger while shouting "LIBERAL, LIBERAL" to sink a candidacy or --earlier --impeach the most competent President since FDR.

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

--Macbeth (IV, i, 14-15)

Reasonable, rational voices are simply drowned-out by the right wing noise machine consisting of the Religious Right and the K-Street advocates of big corporate financed fascism --a mind-numbing 'hell's broth' if ever there was one.

The right wing makes much of entrepreneurship, the right of a soulless corporation to 'make money', to earn a profit. Oh really! Are we to believe that liberal dollars are worth less than 'conservative' dollars?

Even if they were, are they worth so much less that the entire Fox organization can literally write off the 'liberal' market? If that is the FOX position, then my response is that 'liberals' should simply take up the challenge! Boycott every company that places its advertising dollar with Fox. Fox would shove their swill up your ass and inexplicably expect you to patronize their sponsors! Screw that! Boycott any business that advertises on a network that really does not care what you think!

Fox may willingly kiss off moneys that liberals might have spent with Fox advertisers. But how would the advertisers feel about that? Have their marketing departments concluded that only liberal dollars are losing value as a result of conservative mismanagement of the economy? If Fox has blown off the 'liberal market', then there is left only one conclusion: Murdoch and his minions are not in it for the money. The Fox raison d'etre, therefore, is not free enterprise, business or capitalism. They just want to brain wash you.

Republicans are incapable of differentiating between a "principle" and a "prejudice". The conservative mind-set is committed to free speech only if it applies only to them. The GOP has never favored 'free speech' for the opposition.

It's also time to debunk popular, conservative, GOP myths about the 'Fairness Doctrine'.

In the history of the Fairness Doctrine, only one broadcaster permanently lost a license to operate a television station due to bias in coverage. WLBT 3 Jackson, Mississippi attained significant notoriety for its open support of racial segregation in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s and its opposition to civil rights. The station also routinely removed portions of network news broadcasts covering civil rights issues, often under the pretext of technical difficulties, causing civil rights groups and the United Church of Christ to complain to the Federal Communications Commission. Several FCC warnings to Lamar, the station's owner, went unheeded and the issue was contested in the U.S. Court of Appeals. The court ordered the FCC to revoke the station's license in 1969.

Hah, it sure would be terrible to bring that rule back, right?

Anyways it was repealed by Reagan, then came the deluge: talk radio! And, on the whole, that was fine, because while it would be nice if the government could actually mandate that broadcasters be reasonable and serve the public interest, we know that is not actually possible. What would be nice would be more reasonable directives about media ownership and local interest, so that we don't get more stories of small towns that don't hear about tornadoes or something because all their radio stations are owned by Clear Channel (is that just a media studies urban legend??).

But it gets the crazies excited when dumb liberals respond to their inability to find a popular media figure as "charismatic" and talented as Rush Limbaugh by claiming it's time to bring back the fairness doctrine. Then they can send out emails saying "they're gonna ban Rush!" and that fat addict's victim-cult can all blame the uppity women and blacks for them losing their jobs.

So, Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, you are not helping anyone's cause but Rush Limbaugh's when you off-handedly mention your desire to see some new Fairness Doctrine-ish rules be introduced. Even if what you are actually talking about here is hearings on media ownership, which won't happen anyway because the Dems are just as in the pocket of the telecoms and media conglomerates as anyone, all that will make it out to the angry AM Radio masses is "they're gonna take away Rush!"

Though maybe it is helping! The Republican party is bereft of ideas and leadership, and so that angry unpleasant talk show host is becoming their voice. Which is fantastic news for the incredibly small and shrinking demographic he represents, aging white males. Rush repulses every other demographic in America, of course, so good for the Republicans. They are letting Mr. Limbaugh have the closing speech at their annual convention, CPAC. Also on the guest list: Ms. Sarah Palin!

--Talking about a Fairness Doctrine Is the Easiest Way to Piss Off a Republican

Like rotting garbage, vapid talk about 'Republican principles' always makes me puke. Eventually, with enough corporate support, enough mindless distractions provided by the likes of its corporate media sponsors, the GOP has apparently succeeded in dumbing down a nation, reducing its 'body politic' to couch-loving morons, beer swilling bigots, and lobotomized 'Palins'.

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The GOP Planned to Violate Federal Law, Use US Military Against Civilians

According to a planning document obtained by the ACLU, the Republican National Convention had planned to violate federal law by using federal troops to suppress and/or infringe the rights of free speech and assembly during the recent Republican national convention. According to the ACLU, several named agencies are military based, a violation of federal laws prohibiting the use of the military in domestic intelligence gathering activities. It is also a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. [ACLU]

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which provides mapping tools and imagery intelligence that are obtained from the United State's military spy satellites, is named specifically in the report. The document obtained by ACLU supports the charge that the RNC had planned to exploit the capabilities of what is called "these top spying tools" to gather intelligence, spy on activists, media, demonstrators. It is feared that the GOP (the RNC) would have relayed this illegally obtained information to local officials or agencies in the federal government.

The GOP had planned to involve NORTHCOM, the Pentagon's Northern Command. Northcom would have assisted in planning crowd control strategies, dealing with potential civil unrest, clearly a violation of Federal Law.

November 25, 2008, NORFOLK (NNS) -- U.S. Fleet Forces Command's (USFF) staff enhanced its capabilities to support global regional combatant commanders while simultaneously supporting U.S. federal disaster response efforts as it wrapped up its participation in Vigilant Shield 2009 (VS09) Nov. 12-18.

--U.S. Fleet Forces Command Tailors Operational Support for Vigilant Shield 09

The Army Times, meanwhile, had reported that NORTHCOM had, in fact, deployed an active military unit inside the United States, the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment within U.S. Borders. Nevermind that it is a clear violation of the law. But, when the government itself is illegitimate, the 'rule of law' means nothing; the Constitution itself is just a 'goddamned piece of paper'.

In a barely noticed development, a US Army unit is now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted that in addition to emergency response the force “may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control.” The military has since claimed the force will not be used for civil unrest, but questions remain. We speak to Army Col. Michael Boatner, future operations division chief of USNORTHCOM, and Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.

In a barely noticed development last week, the Army stationed an active unit inside the United States. The Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Team is back from Iraq, now training for domestic operations under the control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The unit will serve as an on-call federal response for large-scale emergencies and disasters. It’s being called the Consequence Management Response Force, CCMRF, or “sea-smurf” for short.

--Democracy Now, Is Posse Comitatus Dead? US Troops on US Streets

Furthermore it appears that the FBI may have been using a station faking technology that would allow them to locate an individual through their cell phone. The ACLU is concerned with how this technology is used and if there was proper judicial oversight. In the USA Patriot ACT, this process for obtaining a track was made easier, and could allow for little to no judicial oversight. This tracking via cell phones could have been used during the RNC without the knowledge of even the phone companies.

"These behaviors are a radical departure from separation of civilian law enforcement and military authority, and could, quite possibly, represent a violation of law," said Teresa Nelson, ACLU of Minnesota. The ACLU-MN will continue to investigate and will use their findings in future lawsuits against law enforcement officials.

--Revealing RNC document leaked

RNC 2008 Peaceful marchers get gassed

A final observation: this will only get worse until the current government is crushed and brought to book. Frankly, I don't see that happening. The US, it's 'goverment' in particular, is broken, perhaps irreparably. The regime of George W. Bush was illegitimate from the outset. Restoring legitimacy to a government which is, in fact, controlled by the MIC and the numerous lobbies that are dependent upon it is probably beyond the ability of a new administration to repair.

These are the symptoms of the end of empire. The US couldn't even do that right. Some have estimated that the Roman empire lasted almost 400 years. The US is not even in the ball park. How ludicrous that Bush fancied himself a dictator, a new Caesar. The 'new Caesar' will be remembered as the effeminate dipshit who pranced around the deck of an aircraft carrier in a too tight flight suit, an escapee from the Village People. My personal message to George Bush: fuck you, you megalomaniacal idiot!

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Scott McClellan: Bush Misled Americans In Order to Go to War

The time has come to indict George W. Bush for murder. One suspects McClellan is setting himself up to 'cop a plea'. Certainly, Bush should be indicted for capital crimes, namely, the waging of naked aggression from which deaths resulted. Bush must have known he was subject to prosecution [See: US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441] Otherwise, he would not have given John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales their marching orders: make war crimes legal!

WASHINGTON — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."

McClellan, 40, includes the charges in his book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a "lack of inquisitiveness," says the White House operated in "permanent campaign" mode and says he was deceived by some in the president's inner circle about the leak of a CIA operative's name.

He accuses former White House adviser Karl Rove of misleading him about his role in the CIA case. He describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame and calls Vice President Dick Cheney "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes.

McClellan, who was a tight-lipped defender of administration aides and policy, stops short of saying Bush purposely lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, writing that he and his subordinates were not "employing out-and-out deception" to make their case for war.

But in one chapter, "Selling the War," he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush "managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."

McClellan resigned from the White House on April 19, 2006, after nearly three years as Bush's press secretary.

Michael D. Shear, Ex-aide Scott McClellan says Bush misled the US on war

It was several years ago the so-called Lancet study estimated Iraqi civilian deaths as a result of Bush's war at about 655,000. An estimate as of this week is some 1.2 million! Under law, EACH death is one count of murder in the indictment that should be forthcoming against those who would defraud a nation, the world in order to wage a war whose true purpose was the theft of oil.

I've been saying this for years and taking the heat when idiots --inspired by Fox and Limbaugh --were burning Dixie Chick CDs and waving flags from an SUV. Chicken hawks! Lately, I've gotten a lot of support.

George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns.

Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That's almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment.

I mean, in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe.

That's just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he'd still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.

--Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

With all due respect, Vince, regulars to this blog know that I've been making that case for years. Welcome to the club. Now --who will take this case to a Grand Jury? An indictment now would be timely.

Critics of 'conspiracy theories', just shut up! Labeling is no substitute for critical thinking skills. We are not talking about 'conspiracy theories'. We're talking about the hard evidence --admissible in court --that will get the arch criminal George W. Bush indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced for the crime of mass murder!

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