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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector-Commentary: Bush’s Police State http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=891 Just sitting next to a friend who expresses an anti-Bush opinion can get you into big Secret Service trouble in George W. Bush’s United States. By Frederick Sweet Recently on Michael Feldman’s National Public Radio show “Whaddya Know?” a high school junior told the audience how he and his friend had recently been stopped on a city bus by the Secret Service. The two high school students had obtained tickets from an insurance company to attend a pro-Bush campaign rally. Evidently, before the students could get off the bus, the Secret Service already knew who they were and that they had worked for John Kerry’s campaign. That was enough for the students to be labeled “national security risks.” Unless they turned around and went home, they would be arrested, warned the Secret Service agents. Carrying out President George W. Bush’s violation of American citizens’ civil rights is something of a cottage industry for the Secret Service, abbreviated SS. These unfortunate initials recall Nazi Germany’s defensive security organization, der Schutzstaffein, abbreviated SS. Adolf Hitler’s Waffen SS units became the backbone of the ruling Nazi party’s private military force. Hitler put them in charge of suppressing his regime’s opponents within Germany (and eventually abroad). Now the American SS is running Bush’s police state. “Police state?” Think I’m exaggerating? Is it too harsh .... too off the wall ... to suggest that America is becoming a police state like Nazi Germany? Think again. The Bush process had its beginnings long before the 2004 election campaigns began. Moreover, creation of a police state is a gradual process [see footnote]. Bush’s First Year Fully ten days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC, the Houston Chronicle had already run its chilling story under the banner headline, “Danger Zone: Justice Department Looking More Like Secret Police.” The Chronicle expressed its outrage over John Ashcroft’s attacks on two journalists, Vanessa Leggett and John Solomon. “The Justice Department must immediately stop its attempts at threatening and intimidating journalists and writers,” said Ray Marcano, president of the Society of Professional Journalists and managing editor of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News. “Someone at Justice needs to be held accountable for these outrageous acts.” The Chronicle wrote: “What’s going on here? Why the reluctance on the part of the government to at least explain itself? Targeting journalists for simply doing their jobs. These secret police tactics are more appropriate for some Third World, fascist regime.” Police states do not happen overnight. John Ashcroft had already established the groundwork for Bush’s police state before the “war on terrorism” provided him and his regime with a credible pretext. Since then, consolidating and reorganizing all of the government intelligence and police agencies under the Office of Homeland Security was proposed by the Bush administration. The Republican Congress quickly approved and funded the proposal, and the Bush administration implemented it. Totalitarianism: “ ... imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed [emphasis added].” -- The American Heritage Dictionary Bush Years Three and Four As the November presidential election approaches, Bush’s police state tactics for silencing dissent and eliminating opposition has been accelerated. Of the hundreds of examples--thousands if the suppression of dissent in New York City during last month’s Republican National Convention is counted--here are a few recent examples of “opposing political and cultural expression [being] suppressed”: (A short list of recent Secret Service actions against peaceful dissenters is posted at http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/dreamweaver/bannedbks/censorbushbashers.html) • September 23, 2003 The American Civil Liberties Union charged, in the first nationwide lawsuit of its kind, that at events attended by Bush and other senior federal officials around the country, the Secret Service has been discriminating against protesters in violation of their free speech rights. According to the ACLU lawsuit, local police, acting at the direction of the Secret Service, violated the rights of protesters in two ways. People expressing views critical of the government were moved further away from public officials, while those with pro-Bush views were allowed to remain closer. Those clearly expressing anti-Bush views were herded into a “protest zone,” while those who merely observed, but did not express a view, were allowed to remain closer. The ACLU emphasized that security is not at issue because anyone wishing to harm officials would simply carry a sign with a supportive message or no sign at all. “The individuals we are talking about didn’t pose a security threat; they posed a political threat,” the ACLU’s Witold Walczak said. When last year Bush came to Neville Island, PA, protesters were herded behind a chain-link fence in a remote area out of sight of the press corps and the President, while supporters were allowed to line the motorcade route. One man, who refused to be corralled, was arrested. “There is nothing more American than raising your voice in protest, and there is nothing more un-American than a government that attempts to hit the mute button when it doesn’t like what it hears,” said Witold Walczak, Legal Director of the ACLU of Greater Pittsburgh and a member of the national ACLU legal team that filed the September 23 lawsuit. The ACLU said it had seen a significant spike in such incidents under the Bush Administration, prompting it to charge officials with a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against those who disagree with government policies. Totalitarianism: “ ... opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed.” • May 11, 2004 The Associated Press and the Hattiesburg American filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals Service over an incident in April in which a federal marshal erased reporters’ recordings of a speech Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave to high school students. • August 29, 2004 The Secret Service barred private citizens who had already gotten tickets from attending a Republican campaign event. This had been the third such incident in West Virginia alone. Students Jeff Rogers and Jessica Williams, both of Wheeling, WV, got tickets for the Bush rally from a friend. But when they got to the ticket table, a Secret Service agent accused Rogers of working for Kerry’s advance team, which Rogers denied. However, he had interned with the Ohio County Democratic Party. Ms. Williams was undecided. The two thought they would compare Bush’s speech with what they’d heard from Kerry on his July 31 visit to the city. Mr. Rogers was quoted: “I was just there to listen ... and get a perspective of what he [Bush] thinks about the issues. Neither one of us was going to cause any disturbance. We were just going to respectfully listen and, afterward, process through what we agreed with and disagreed with.” He added, “They said, ‘We’re not going to let you in. Nice try, though.’” Totalitarianism: “ ... opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed.” • September 4, 2004 Derek Kjar was visited by the Secret Service after his neighbors had complained to the SS about the anti-Bush sticker on his car. The decal, which Kjar had printed from a web source, had a cartoon depiction of Bush’s head wearing a crown, with the words “King George--off with his head.” Special agent Lon Garner, in charge of the SS Denver field office, confirmed the investigation. He said agents had ruled out a threat to the president. Garner also said it was the agency’s job to investigate all reported threats to figures under Secret Service protection: “We are bound by law. We take them very seriously, regardless of who the protectee [sic] is.” However, Kjar’s neighborhood snitches had turned in a false alarm and were not chastised for abuse of due process. This sort of thing, by the way, is a perfect example of why the TIPS program could never have worked. The SS would not have the manpower to processes all the complaints by snitches against their neighborhood dissenters. • September 8, 2004 Bush was in Kansas City at a suburban high school. Two girls who attended the school were in the stands at the stadium to hear the president speak. One of the girls was wearing a T-shirt that had a W with an X through it. Two Secret Service agents told the girl wearing the shirt and her girlfriend sitting next to her that they had to leave. The SS escorted both girls out of the stadium. The girlfriend had not been wearing an “offensive” T-shirt. She was just quietly sitting next to the girl with the no-Bush T-shirt. When the SS said they had to leave, the girls said they had to stay at school because their attendance was required. But the SS told them that they had to get off school property! The SS then forced these two 15-year-old girls to walk across a busy highway and wait until Bush had finished speaking and had left. Only then were the girls allowed back into school. The high school kids had been warned before the rally that no anti Bush T-shirts were allowed, and one girl had broken that rule. However, the other girl, her friend--who was not dressed inappropriately--was also forced by the SS to leave simply for being her companion. Is that any way to treat American kids? The other 15-year-old girl was doing nothing wrong except sitting next to her friend. But she learned a big lesson and will never forget it as long as she lives: In George W. Bush’s United States, sitting next to a friend who expresses an opposing political viewpoint can get you into big trouble. Totalitarianism: “ ... opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed.” ___________________________ Footnote: On July 31, 1932, Hitler’s Nazi party won 230 out of 608 seats in the Reichstag, making it the majority party, but he was not yet in power. It was several years before Hitler became the cosmically evil war criminal. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was finally sworn in as Chancellor. Historian Alan Bullock describes it: “Hitler came to office in 1933 as the result, not of any irresistible revolutionary or national movement sweeping him into power, nor even of a popular victory at the polls, but as part of a shoddy political deal with the ‘Old Gang’ whom he had been attacking for months.... Hitler did not seize power; he was jobbed into office by a backstairs intrigue.” At the time, most Germans couldn’t imagine that Hitler would last long because his bombastic and swaggering manner and his overly simplistic speeches about Germany’s social, economic, and political problems were a “joke.” Politically sophisticated Germans dismissed Hitler as an inept caricature, but he and his accomplices consolidated their power by passing national security legislation supported by a stacked court. During these critical times of concentrating power, der Schutzstaffein (SS) made sure that Hitler’s critics and opponents were kept far away and silenced so that it would appear as though he had complete national support and, indeed, a mandate. Thus peacefully began Nazi totalitarianism. Frederick Sweet is Professor of Reproductive Biology in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. You can email your comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Posted Sunday, October 2, 2004 ----------------------------------------------- The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon <http://www.encyclopediaindex.com/b/psrev10.htm>http://www.encyclopediaindex.com/b/psrev10.htm The aim of these considerations is to recall to the reader the fact that the outward events of revolutions are always a consequence of invisible transformations which have slowly gone forward in men's minds. Any profound study of a revolution necessitates a study of the mental soil upon which the ideas that direct its course have to germinate. -Gustave le Bon ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <FONT COLOR="#000099">Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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