Homeland Xenophobia
This is far, far from the worst of abuses inflicted by Americans on others in the name of security, but it hit home for me — perhaps because I’m very often in strange airports in other countries. Read the story of a British reporter caught in the new American security bureaucracy that shames our nation.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
According to an editor at the LA Times, there has been a “tremendous” response from readers to the reporting on my case, and I have received many emails expressing outrage and embarrassment. The novelist Jonathan Franzen wrote, “On behalf of the non-thuggish American majority, my sincere apologies.”
Thank goodness he didn’t use my trademarked term “Thuggle™®©”
;-)
August 9th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
what’s everyone getin so worked up about? this is exactly the kind of america (guarded by nazis) that shcb and those like him (shrub and co.) want. isn’t this what u’ all voted for, TWICE?
“On a more practical level, this obsession, when practised with such extreme lack of intelligence (in both senses of the word), as in the case of my detention, must be misdirecting valuable money and manpower into fighting journalism rather than terrorism.” duh, control of journalism is a main goal.
those who control the information control the people. If there was a “free press” then mainstream media would conduct rational reviews of 911 without resorting to derogatory comments about independent scientists like Stephen Jones and Kevin Ryan while listening in rapture to officially sanctioned “experts” as they spout easily debunked garbage. (Refer to papers at the Journal of 911 studies. )
Infowars.com has been warning about this crap coming down the pipe for years. their warnings are sneered at, yet months or years later laws are passed that they were warning about and were sneared at for warning about.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
simma down now
we “all” didn’t vote for the pretzelnitwit “twice”
his first coronation came by one vote of the ‘Supreme’ Court (despite millions more Americans voting for Gore)
I strongly suspect the vote tampering from ’04 ‘installed’ more malware
Does anyone remember dumbya from the first 8 months? a bumbling always-on-vacation-clearing-brush-moran (kinda like pretending to be a cowboy instead of a b-movie [wait c-movie] hollywood actor). stem cell snafu. bin laden determined to strike in US – with airplanes
Wouldn’t put it past the current junta to have ‘engineered’ 9/11 (ie let it happen or actively help it), not so sure about broad superduper conspiracies.
Also wouldn’t put it past these crazy mofos to wait until Prez Obama or Hillary takes their oath then let fly a series of attacks (to which the rwnj 13%ers will respond by, oh i dunno, bombing more federal buildings?)
August 10th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Like this?
http://www.rense.com/general77/straw.htm
?
August 10th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Enkidu, you’ve got to be kidding, “engineered 911” whoever heard of such a crazy thing. Alex Album of the Seattle Times wrote this article which clearly ridicules such assertions and those who assert them.
http://www.911blogger.com/node/10509#comment-156898
Unfortunately, some wiseass (Mr. Martell) has inserted comments which make Mr. Album’s claims appear ludicrous. If you are uncomfortable with truth, just ignore those comments like everyone else who supports the junta, oops I mean current administration (now look what you made me do!), does – such as everyone in the mainstream media.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:12 am
Homeland Xenophobia
Here is an excerpt from the review of “They Thought They Were Free” by Milton Mayer:
“Among Mayer’s stories are some of the most telling aspects of how the Nazis came to take over Germany (and much of Europe). I first quoted them a year ago in a Common Dreams article linked from BuzzFlash titled The Myth of National Victimhood. I noted that Mayer told how one of his friends said:
‘What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security….’
As a friend of Mayer’s noted, and Mayer recorded in his book:
‘This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. …
‘To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it – please try to believe me – unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, “regretted,” that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these “little measures” that no “patriotic German” could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.'”
Full book review here:
http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/05/11/har05011.html#bio
August 10th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Well I don’t know about you guys, but I am outraged. I can’t believe we live in a country that abuses foreigner’s constitutional rights this way. Since I know you are all dedicated students of our constitution I won’t bore you with the petty facts in this matter like citing passages from founding documents. As any idiot who has ever read anything on Kos knows, people from other countries have the same rights under our constitution as citizens of this country, we are all citizens of the world after all. It is also obvious that the proper path to remedy a terrible injustice like this is through the legislative process. Congress needs to pass a law to revoke sections of the patriot act and obsolete laws like the one that is being abused in LA. I for one demand congress fix this problem by the end of next week. If they don’t, investigations should commence immediately. We need to get to the bottom of this constitutional crisis, Democratic congressmen and senators ran on the platform of changing the patriot act, they said they would bring the troops home, they haven’t. They haven’t even drafted legislation to address these so very serious issues.
Admittedly not all Democrats actually said they would revoke sections of the Patriot act, but they certainly inferred it, in my opinion that makes them liars just like the low life’s that did specifically say they would pass such legislation, with or without a presidential veto. Our great country was founded on a series of checks and balances, just as congress has oversight over the executive branch, the executive branch has oversight over congress. Here is a great article written by an expert in constitutional law, he goes by the name of “bloginmypajamas” https://www.gunz-n-ammo-4-truth.com . Since people like TV and LB are too stupid to understand what this brave soul has written, let me explain; he says the president has the power to propoena any member of congress and any member of their staff. A propoena is different from a subpoena in that all constitutional rights to legal representation are revoked. He cites several passages in Federalist 96 that make it perfectly clear this is what the founding fathers had in mind, I haven’t read 96, but it must be true, BIMP wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.
It is imperative if we want to have any standing at all with the rest of the world we must investigate immediately, the president should bring staffers from congressional members in front of panel of neo-cons for questioning, we need to know who knew what when, we need to know what went into the thought process of these members of congress that has kept them from passing legislation eliminating these abuses. If they refuse to answer questions, any questions, they should be shipped to Crawford Texas immediately to clear brush on the president’s and Ted Nugent’s ranches. No punishment is too severe. Then impeachment proceedings should be started for the Democratic congressmen they work for. After all they gave us their word. Thank God we have a president who understands his proper place in our system of checks and balances. From what I have heard, John Ashcroft and Janet Reno will head up this bi-partisan panel with the rest of the members randomly selected from the congressional delegations of Utah and Wyoming. Now this is how our constitution is supposed to work. Long live the king.
August 10th, 2007 at 5:16 am
I got subpoenaed the other day. I told the investigators that I would only talk off the record and not under oath. She laughed in my face.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:21 am
No sense of humor, she was probably a rethuglican
August 10th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Heh, all kidding aside, shcb, you can roll with the punches. I no I”ll probably never change your views on anything, but I kinda like ya.
August 10th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Cool
August 16th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
In the spirit of sharing …
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/160807_quell_dissent.htm