How the War Racket Means the Beginning of the End for 'America'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Used to be --there was good news and there was bad news. Of late, the bad news is that there is no good news and there may not be any good news in the foreseeable future. Unless things change, there may not be any good news ever!

I know whose fault this is! This is the result and work of American robber barons and right wing militarists who have sold America out to China as they plot more wars of naked aggression for the purpose of seizing the oil fields of the Middle East.

Much of the plan, the legacies of Reagan, Sr. and Shrub, the three henchman of the apocalypse, is already in place

Reagan's Two Year Long Depression

It was left to Ronald Reagan to usher in a depression of some two years, the longest and worst since Hoover's Great Depression of the 1930s. This depression followed quickly on the heels of a the GOP tax cut which benefited only the upper quintile. Obviously, the 'tax cut' was not an economic stimulus as we were told it would be. The results were, in fact, the depression of two years, a contraction of the economy as a result of the transfer of wealth upward to the upper quintile. A windfall of this nature is no stimulus to invest but, rather, to transfer the gains offshore. There were no net gains in jobs. There was no Reagan-recovery. There were, rather, net losses, declines in employment. The government's own stats prove it. They are available the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Department -B.E.A.

Our Major Exports: Death and Destruction

Check the CIA's 'World Fact Book'. With the world's largest NEGATIVE Current Account Balance, the U.S. is on the bottom of the list. China is on top with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Account Balance. The downside for China is this: it must prop up the worthless U.S. dollar if it wishes to survive. Clearly, then, the war racket has done absolutely nothing for the US bottom line. The US, the right wing in particular, for all it bluster and bullshit has less than nothing to show for the many lives that were sacrificed at the alter of greed and capitalist/imperialistic ambition. I am fed up with the lies and crap! How about you?

The US now follows the Roman model of 'empire'. Admittedly, it is difficult to say which comes first --the collapse of the real economy or the commencement of empire! In the case of Rome, it seems clear that the local economy was already in trouble when Rome began its conquest of Dacia for its gold! As is the case with the U.S. today, the currency of Rome, sesterces, was worthless but as a means by which a head count could be made of those attending the gladiatorial contests in the Coliseum. Today, the U.S. dollar is propped up by China --not because China just wants to help us out; it wants to dump its crap on us. If it does not, its own over-population will enter into utter poverty, millions will starve. Chinese poohbahs will, of course, blame US. Facing starvation, China will threaten the world, if it does not already.

The New National Capital/Capitol: K-street

K-street is where the people get fucked! K-street is the best little whorehouse in Washington, the nation's 'read light district' in which the apparatus of government is pimped! K-street --not Congress --is where the bills, the laws, the policies are written, decided upon. K-street is where the 'Johns' buy the bureaucracy and decide foreign and domestic policies. K-street is where money talks, souls are sold, bullshit peddled.

K-street is where the so-called 'Jewish Lobby' (read: Israeli Lobby) dictates American foreign policy. Some have called it a marriage made in hell, in fact, a Faustian bargain, in which the soul of America is bartered or whored-out outright! What's in it for the U.S. to continue to support the increasingly fanatic, aggressive and extremist governments in Israel? The most obvious answer is this: Israel provides the convincing 'pre-text' for US oil wars in the Middle East. Big oil has said to Isreal or Israel to big oil: 'you scratch my back and I will scratch yours!'.

The Republican Party was once a moderately conservative, pro-business outfit, until it was hijacked by the oligarchy and turned into a full-on predatory machine, hiding behind the facade of hate mobilizing issues like bogus overseas threats abroad and uppity brown people and demanding women at home. Basically, any way that middle class white males could be distracted from their sinking economic status - through the diversion of a sense of superiority over others, or the supposed threat to that superior status - was employed to cover for a party whose true agenda was to quietly produce the greatest transfer of wealth in all of human history.

Having succeeded dramatically, they are back at it again. It is now transparent, for anyone who cares to look, that the ugly tea party movement in America is an invention of the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Dick Armey and their sick ilk, once again mobilizing a boatload of fools who are angry, but too stupid to know quite why. This explains their endless rhetoric about the evils of the federal government, and their simultaneous desire to keep their Social Security and Medicare benies. It also explains their unmatched idiocy in serving as tools for their own destruction. If they succeed, they fail. If they get their champions elected, they lose their government-provided (Shhhh!) goodies. Brilliant.

In any case, the takeover of the GOP by Serious Money is now well into its second stage. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it is. Seriously, what is the next step after this one fails to provide any long-term solutions to what ails America, as most assuredly will be the case? For a decade or three now, regressives in America have been showing that they are capable of anything. Which more or less answers that question, doesn't it?

If you're willing to savage military icons like John McCain, Max Cleland and John Kerry in order to win elections - and especially after you get away with it every time - you're willing to do anything. If you're willing to mock the 9/11 widows as scheming opportunists, you're willing to do anything. If you're willing to don a tuxedo and joke about missing WMD at a press banquet in Washington, just as you're telling the American military's adversaries in Iraq to "bring it on", you're willing to do anything.

--Our Long National Nightmare Isn't Over, It's Just Beginning, David Michael Green

War is a Racket

WAR is a racket.

It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

--War Is a Racket, General Smedly Butler, Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Major General Smedley D. Butler,
USMC, Retired

Conspiracies are how things get done. Some are legal; some are not. A 'corporation', for example, is a conspiracy made legal by 'charter'. Corporations were described by St. Thomas More in his 'Utopia':

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

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!

--Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia

If you are still drinking the Kool-aid, go to Findlaw, where the search term 'conspiracy' of itself will get you 690 cases. Go to the Cornell University Law Library. Type in the single search term 'conspiracy'! Among the hundreds (possibly thousands of cases) you will find No. 03-3156,UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,APPELLEE v.ANTONIO N. TABRON, A/K/A FAT CAT,APPELLANT.

The transfer of wealth upward is deliberate. It's how the the 'pay-offs' are laundered. Initially, it was the top 20 percent who benefited as charts dating to the beginning of the Clinton administration indicate and prove. Clinton succeeded in reversing the trend. It would have been a lasting legacy, Clinton's finest hour, had not the regime of George W. Bush reversed the reverse and resumed the payoff as evinced in the inexorable trend upward.

‎I don't know who it was who said that Satan's biggest 'trick' was convincing the world that he did not exist. The traitors of the 'American' right wing have, in fact, sold out America: to the ruling one percent who alone have benefited from GOP 'tax cuts', tax cuts which are inexorably followed by job losses if not recessions/depressions. The government's own statistics prove the undeniable trend. As there is no defense rational defense, the meme that is drummed into you from the media liars and blow-hards like Limbaugh deride the very existence of 'conspiracies' and, thus, from an over generalized assumption for which there is not a shred of evidence is deduced a specific conclusion: 'conspiracies do not exist'.

This is how the right wing thinks. While sane and/or scientifically inclined people will observe first and conclude later, the right wing impaired will believe based upon prejudices and/or whatever makes them feel good. They will shoe-horn reality into the mold; they will work backward from foregone conclusions. They will literally reverse 'cause and effect' and mistake one for the other. They will shoot first and ask questions later! They will not tolerate any fact that proves them wrong. In fact, they are not only wrong, they are wrong-headed! And it will prove to be the end of America!

War is a Racket

If WTC 7 Was a Controlled Demolition, so were the Twins!

Note: The Existentialist Cowboy is currently bombarded by spam from a lunatic name caller of the right wing ilk! Therefore, comments are moderated. Intelligent comments are, as always, welcome! Ad hominem attacks, spam and psychotic drivel is not! Eventually, the offending party will be committed to an asylum and we adults can once again engage in intelligent, articulate dialogue. Thanks for understanding.

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How GOP Bigots Scapegoat Obama

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Hitler scapegoated jews! The American right wing now scapegoats Obama! Why are we surprised? The GOP/right wing is just doing what psychopathic screw-ups and habitual liars always do. They try to find someone else to blame.

Obama is an easy target! Because Obama is black the GOP can depend on getting the support of bigots without ever having to use that 'n' word themselves. They keep their collars lily white even as their motives are of darkest night! Their plans are drawn up on K-street; they don't have to get their hands dirty. Leave that to the rank and file bigots.

In response to my previous post, Noor al Haqiqa wrote:

That is probably one of the saddest vids [The Eagles, Last Resort] I have seen for awhile. Not because I don't delve into the mire a little too often, but because so much of that is part of my life. ...there are times I just want to hate the perpetrators of this situation, but I cannot for to do so would be giving them what they want ~ my soul.

I hear you. I am descended of Native Americans whom I believe were and would have been better stewards of this continent. At the same time, I am also descended of hard working Irish and Scottish immigrants who only wanted a chance in life. For many years --until the British lost the so-called 'Revolutionary War' --Native Americans and the new settlers lived peaceably. Several Native American chieftains were admitted to the Court of St James --Thayendanegea (Joselph Brant) most notably. Pocahontas, the Indian princess who helped the English colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, is buried in a churchyard in Gravesend, England. She died there in 1617 while trying to make her way back to her beloved native land --America.

I have often tried to fix a date on which we have all become pilgrims, the date on which we all lost 'our country'! What was the tipping point? When did we lose our grip? When did we find our 'Gravesend'? When did we lose our way among strangers?

I often recall the moment I witnessed in Houston's Jones Hall when amid thunderous applause Dan Rather introduced himself to a news conference attended by the media executives from across the nation. "Are you running for something," President Richard M. Nixon, already besieged by Watergate, asked Rather.

"No, Mr President!" Rather responded, "Are you?"

But it wasn't Watergate! We overcame and rose above Watergate. It was an old 'Western' in which the 'good guys' won. They did win, didn't they?

It was Reagan!

It was Reagan who finished the job. It was Reagan who stole the wealth of the nation and gave it to elites who did not produce it, did not deserve it and did nothing to earn it. The money changers were not driven from the temple. The temple was stolen by them. They call it the 'Fed'.

It was Reagan who pandered to ignorance, bigotry, hate, and prejudice. He could afford to pander; he was financed by a 'ruling elite', now just one percent of the entire population. It was Reagan who made psychopaths feel good about being psychopaths. It was Reagan who sold out America, broke the back of labor and exported U.S. industry and jobs to Japan and China.

Because of trends begun by Reagan, the U.S. is now at the very bottom of the CIA's 'World Fact Book' with the world's largest Negative Current Account Balance, formerly called the 'balance of trade deficit'. At the very top --with the world's largest positive Current Account Balance --is China to whom we have now exported our wealth. But because China must prop up the buck in order to sell to us via Wal-Mart, we would already be prostrate and penniless.

It was Reagan and the psychopathic ilk who followed him blindly over the cliff. It was the neo-imperialists, parasitic partners of the Military-Industial Complex, who dared dream of empire in the PNAC document: REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century [PDF]. It was these neo-imperialists, called NECONS, who pined for a new a 'catalyzing event', a new 'Pearl Harbor', that would be exploited to justify a campaign of aggressive wars, in fact, war crimes punishable by death even under U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441.

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

A so-called Neo-conservative movement 'Kristolized' in the 1960s, an obvious knee-jerk over-reaction to what was called a 'radical cultural revolution' that was perceived to have been taking place in the United States. Others just called it the 'Woodstock Generation'. Irving Kristol wrote: "If there is any one thing that neoconservatives are unanimous about, it is their dislike of the counter-culture."

It is frightening to think that the US may now be poised on the brink of collapse because stuffed-shirts like William Kristol were hopelessly, awkwardly square, had never smoked a joint, and thought Woodstock was a little cartoon bird!

America might still change but only after it has had a sea change of heart and mind. But until wealth inequality is addressed, the media returned to the people and the anti-American-anti-Constitution imperialists tried for war crimes and mass murder, nothing will change for the better. A drunk who will not recognize his problem is just a hopeless drunk, a 'druggie' a hopeless druggie and a thief will steal again if he thinks he can get away with it.

There are no quick fixes and I expected none from Obama. He is just a man --not a miracle worker. And it requires a miracle to save us from the pox that has been visited upon us by the real 'enemy'. It was Pogo who deplored the waste dumped in his swampland home and said: "The enemy is us!" Pogo was right!

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Right Wing 'Shock Doctrine', Idiocy and Evil Intentions Come Home to Roost

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Shortly before his death, the late Hunter Thompson wrote that '....the American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime'. He said that our prospects for the future were even worse. Indeed, we are poised on the brink of a financial collapse that may yet make the crash of '29 and the subsequent Great Depression look like a walks in the park.

The difference is that in 1929, the US still had industries and small farmers many of whom survived the depression very well. As youngster, I recall talking to some of these people and listening in awe. Some of them actually lived off the land like pioneers. For some, 'polk salad' was a staple. Others lived off ' 'Possum'. Still others waged war on the 'game warden' who might have prevented their living off the land. A great Uncle wrapped up a 'Game Warden' in a cow hide, hoisted him over a high limb in the Texas 'Big Thicket'. He left him there --swinging in the high branches. They were inventive, resourceful and ruthlessly determined to survive. The 'man' would not deprive them of a right to survive.

Thompson wrote that he was 'surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. As I have written on this blog, the US has exported its industries, primarily to China. We have Nixon and the Bushes to thank for that.

Even before the US entry into WWII, Adolph Hitler and his 'inner circle' often ridiculed American automobiles and highways --or lack thereof. Germany had the autobahn. Albert Speer, in his "Inside the Third Reich" recalled an auto 'trip' he took with Hitler. They were overtaken that evening by someone in an American made auto. The Nazis would not be outdone. As I recall, Hitler, himself, was behind the wheel in a Mercedes. In a burst of testesterone, Herr Hitler put his 'pedal to metal', overtook the American car and left it 'in the dust'. Speer recalls that they all had a good laugh. At our expense.

It could be argued that the way in which Thompson wrote a lot of his work is attributed to the New Journalism movement during the 1960's, led mainly by Tom Wolfe. New journalism aimed to revolutionize and break all the rules of traditional journalism, including features like writing as if you are inside the head of a character or documenting everyday events and details. Thompson has adopted many of the features that are deemed to be part of this movement, but he has made a positive contribution and a significant impact on it by taking these features to a new level and putting his own spin on them. Thus publicizing an original branch to this wave of new styles, although what he writes about is largely non-fiction he relies on satirical devices to drive his point's home.

--Hunter S. Thompson's World of Fear and Loathing

As Thompson pointed out:

Our highway system is crumbling, our police are crooked, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam...

Hitler and Goring must be laughing in their graves. The American GOP has achieved in the US almost everything Hitler might have dreamed about except the extermination of Jews, Gypsies other 'untermenschen'. The GOP with key and strategic Democratic sellouts here and there betrayed the people and subverted the Constitution

Thompson called 'disastrous' US defeats all over the world. The 'Gonzo' also predicted that the 'stock market' would never come back.

There were other 'harbingers', prophets warning of impending disasters. In his 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' of 2004, John Perkins gave us an insider's account the 'neo-colonist' exploitation of the Third World by what Perkins called a cabal of corporations, banks, and the US government.

It was done against the backdrop of 'economic hitmen' laughing it up, toasting the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom up that the world had ever seen. As a counter-point, Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine seemed to be working according to plan.

Naomi Klein: Shock Doctrine

The book and film argue that free market policies of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics rose to prominence in Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin and in the US under George Bush. The Katrina disaster is the most recent example. The 'privatization of Iraq's economy' under the Coalition Provisional Authority was not popular and was not Democratic. The citizens of Iraq were, in fact, in a state of shock. The US even boasted of its campaign of 'Shock and Awe'. As I have written myself --short a revolution, we are fucked!

Two big factors have already made the US a THIRD WORLD nation

Reagan's tax cut of 1982 which began a trend in which wealth trickled up to the top one percent. The trend, reversed in Clinton's second term, resumed with Bush Jr. Today--as a direct result of unfair REGRESSIVE taxation --the nation's elite of about 1 percent of the populations owns MORE than about 90 percent of the rest of the population combined.

Nearly three decades that Reaganomics has been allowed to survive, if not thrive, have been enough to allow the trickle-down theory to come to fruition. Unfortunately, it is debt -- and not wealth --that has been trickling [down].Reagan's economic target was to drown government in a cocktail of lowered government spending, deregulation and reduced tax rates. However, in order to shrink government to bathtub size, the role of private business had to expand to fill basic needs, which was totally fine with Republicans.

But another consequence of Reaganomics, one that doesn't jive so much with traditional Republican values, is the reduction of states' powers. Local governments are beginning to see the real meaning of trickle-down economics: dwindling federal funds make it harder for states and cities to meet annual budget requirements. While the U.S. government can live on credit, many local budgets are required by law to be balanced. So the largest tax cuts to date were bound to trickle down to local governing structures, and now many governors and mayors are responding in an uncharacteristically Reaganistic fashion.

Take Obama's home territory, for example. Chicago, under the firm grip of Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley, is deeply committed to privatization. Not because it's a popular idea, mind you, but because the city is desperate for funds.

Still, they don't call it the Chicago school of economics for nothing.

--Local and State Governments are Selling Off Public Property and Services

Deals cut by R. Nixon, Ronald Reagan primarily have resulted in the outsourcing of a) jobs; b) entire industries. As a result --the CIA lists the US as leading the entire world with by far the BIGGEST BALANCE OF TRADE DEFICIT! In stark terms, one is hard pressed to name a single industry in which the US still leads the world! Yet --we OWE the world for having picked up and carried our debt.

The US simply cannot continue to survive as a nation, let alone a world power. And for all of this we owe the GOP for having been its architect and the Democratic party for having caved on crucial issues.

Supply-side economics is not a 'hands off' policy at all. It is, in fact, an active, deliberate distribution of wealth upward to an increasingly tiny elite. It is pseudo-economics touted to justify big tax breaks for the upper ten percent of the nation's income recipients and wealth-holders. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, called 'supply-side economics', a trojan horse advocated by what he called a 'noisy faction of Republicans'.

If the US should slide off into another great depression, it will be because consumers of all classes and primarily the middle and lower classes do not have money to spend. Another great depression will result for two basic reasons:

• the investor classes have exported their tax cut windfalls offshore causing net declines --not increases --in jobs;
• The productive (working) class is taxed disproportionately, effectively robbing them of their purchasing power which alone drives the economy.

It is easy to understand, then, why economies contract. A contracting economy is an economy that is in depression. GOP supply-siders have a stake in promoting the simplistic 'theory' that the great 'Stock Market Crash of 1929' was the primary cause of the Great Depression.

As class warfare propaganda, this myth is matched only by 'supply side (trickle down) economics. Indeed, many believe that the crash of Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 is one and the same with the Great Depression. In fact, there were many causes for the Great Depression which was, in fact, the contraction of the money supply among those who were most likely to spend it.

Nevertheless, the crash is significant. Stockholders lost more than $40 billion dollars within two months of the crash. The market had regained some of its losses by the end of 1930 --not enough to prevent the nation from entering the Great Depression.

Bank Failures

More significant, is the fact that millions lost their 'savings'. People save in order to spend. It is spending that might have kept a viable economy afloat. In the 1930s, over 9,000 banks failed at a time when bank deposits were uninsured. Surviving banks stopped making new loans, reducing total amount of money in circulation. That's called a 'contraction'; the other word for 'contraction' is 'depression' as in 'Great Depression'. The same thing happened recently, when those favored by Reaganesque 'tax cuts' exported their monies to offshore tax havens. Another 'contraction' occurred! It is often called Reagan's recession. Others, recalling that it was the deepest, longest 'contraction' since Hoover's 'Great Depression' of the 30s will call it what it was in fact! Depression!

As a result of the '29 crash, fears, and bad news, millions of all classes just stopped buying, leading to sharp reductions in production and jobs. As unemployment increased, people fell behind in their installment payments; homes and items were repossessed. Inventories increased, sat idle, and could not be sold. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose above 25%.

American Economic Policy with Europe

As businesses failed, it was hoped that the Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930 would protect American companies. The act charged a high tax for imports causing a reduction in US-foreign trade.

Drought Conditions.

While not a direct cause of the Great Depression, the drought that occurred in the Mississippi Valley in 1930 was of such proportions that many could not pay their taxes or other debts. They were forced to sell their farms for no profit to themselves.

This was the topic of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. GOP policies are clearly responsible for the income and wealth disparities that are at the root of every GOP recession/depression since 1900. Ronald Reagan's GOP tax cut of 1982 is the easiest target. Several points should be made about this improvident move. One --if 'tax cuts', the GOP panacea for every evil, were in any way effective against depression, then why did a depression of two years follow the Reagan tax cut?

Instead of making peace with the GOP, the Democrats should have waged JIHAD! By bending over and taking it, by capitulating to the robber barons, the US has been sold down the river.

It's all over folks. This US may not come back in our lifetimes.

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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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