| just
who the hell is running our country . . .
NOTE: This was forwarded to me by one
of my co-workers. I'm not sure that the person who sent it to him
is the author, but it seems to be accurate. It even posts websites where
info was found. It's a bit unsettling . . . Makes me want
to read "1984" again.
Again, if you do not want these forwards, please let me know. I won't
hold it against you if you want to live in the dark.
Sincerely, KRIS
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Greetings.
I'm passing this along because I have yet to find in weeks and
months of reading and research such a concise and powerful
treatment of our current political and social condition. I believe it
is worth all your time. It comes by way of Rep. Jim McDermott, the
Washington Democrat who seems to be in a diminishing number of politicians
concerned about civil liberties and so forth. It is a trifle long,
but it is very informative and well-sourced.
Consider
it time lost chatting with an inmates, or whatever it is you all do online.
For those with less knowledge or concern so far, it talks about
TIAA (Total Information Awareness), Homeland Security, Iraq,
in general on how despotic our administration has become, and at last
how uncomfortable similarities
of these times to those preceding fascist Germany. For those more
informed, or rather terrified, it discusses in addition the
Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, which is chilling,
and entirely new to my ears.
I hope you'll consider attending tomorrow's rally wherever you are,
where Barcelona and Rome expect a half-million demonstators, SF and NY
one hundred thousand, and fifty thousand here in Seattle.
bye-bye.
> Matthew
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Subject: FW: A kinder, gentler fascism
Last September, German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin pointed
out that George Bush is using Iraq to distract the American public from
his failed domestic policies. She capped her statement by reminding
her audience: "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did
that." She was chastised so severely that she soon recanted.
But let's face it, she was right on the money. Rather than
recanting, she should have clarified. She wasn't comparing Bush
to the Hitler of the late 1930s and early '40s; she was comparing
him to the Hitler of the late 1920s and early '30s. And if the jackboot
fits?
What most Americans have forgotten about Hitler (or never knew
in the first place) is that he came to power legally. He and his Nazi
Party were elected democratically in a time of great national turmoil
and crisis. They themselves had done much to cause the turmoil,
of course, but that's what makes the Bush comparison so compelling.
Like the Bush administration, the Nazis were funded and ultimately
ushered into power by wealthy industrialists looking for government favors
in the form of tax breaks, big subsidies, and laws to weaken the rights
of workers.
When the Reichstag (Germany's Parliament building) was set ablaze in 1933
(probably by Nazis), the Nazis framed their political rivals for
it. In the general panic that followed, the German Parliament
was purged of all left-wing representatives who might be soft on communists
and foreigners, and the few who remained then VOTED to grant Chancellor
Hitler dictatorial powers. The long, hideous nightmare had begun.
History teaches us that it is shockingly easy to separate reasonable
and intelligent people from their rights. A legally elected leader and
party can easily manipulate national events to whip up fear, crucify scapegoats,
gag dissenters, and convince the masses that their liberties must be suspended
(temporarily, of course) in the name of restoring order.
Consider
the following two statements, and see if you can identify the authors.
"The
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same way in any country."
"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,
my message is this: 'Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode
our national unity and diminish our resolve.'"
The first statement is a quote from Hitler's right hand man, Hermann Goering,
explaining at his war crimes trial how easily he and his fellow Nazis
hijacked Germany's democratic government. the second statement is a quote
from Bush's right hand man, John Ashcroft, defending the Patriot Act and
explaining why dissent will no longer be tolerated in the age of terrorism.
If that doesn't send chills down your spine, nothing will.
When the shooting started at Lexington Green in 1775, those calling
themselves patriots were the men and women who refused to yield their
rights to an increasingly oppressive government. Today, according to John
Ashcroft and his Patriot Act of 2001, a patriot is someone who kneels
down in fear and hands over his or her rights to the government in the
name of fighting terrorism.
Isn't the hypocrisy of this all too obvious? The Bush administration
wants us to fight in Afghanistan, to fight in Iraq, and to fight
wherever terrorists may be hiding. And what, pray tell, are we fighting
for? Well, according to the White House, we're fighting for
freedom. Yet freedom is exactly what the White House is demanding
that we now SURRENDER in the name of fighting terrorism.
So what's really going on? Well, it's all a lie, of course.
The Bush administration isn't any more interested in protecting
our freedom from terrorists than Hitler was in protecting Germans from
communists, Jews, and all the other groups he scapegoated. The Bush
administration is fighting only to protect itself and its corporate sponsors.
It hides behind a veil of national security and behind non-stop
war headlines of its own creation. And behind that smokescreen,
Bush, Inc. is pursuing Hitler's old agenda from the 1920s and '30s:
serving the interests of the corporate industrialists who brought
it to power.
There is a name for governments that serve the interests of Big Businessat
the expense of their own citizens: fascist.
Here's
a short list of the rights we've already surrendered since the September
11 attacks. Most of these abuses are from a single piece of legislation
called the Patriot Act of 2001, which was rushed through Congress with
no debate in the aftermath of the attacks. Many of the Congressmen
who voted for it later admitted that they hadn't even read it at the time.
> 1. The government can conduct "sneak
and peek" searches in which agents enter your home or business and
search your belongings without informing
you until long after.
> 2. Government agents can force libraries
and bookstores to hand over the titles of books that you've purchased
or borrowed and can demand the identity of anyone who has purchased or
borrowed certain books. The government can also prosecute libraries and
bookstores for informing you that the search occurred or even for informing
you that an inquiry was made.
According
to ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, such "searches could extend
to doctors' offices, banks and other institutions that, like libraries,
were previously off-limits under the law." Chris Finan, President
of the American Booksellers group adds: "The refusal of the Justice
Department to tell Congress how many times it has used its powers is even
more unsettling because it naturally leads to the suspicion that it is
using them a lot."
> 3. Federal agents are authorized
to use hidden devices to trace the telephone calls or emails of people
who are not even suspected of a crime. The FBI is also permitted to use
its Magic Lantern technology to monitor everything you do on your computer--recording
not just the websites you visit but EVERY SINGLE KEYSTROKE as well.
> 4. Government agents are permitted
to arrest and detain individuals "suspected" of terrorist activities
and to hold them INDEFINITELY, WITHOUT CHARGE, and WITHOUT an ATTORNEY.
> 5. Federal agents are permitted
to conduct full investigations of American citizens and permanent legal
residents simply because they have participated in activities protected
by the First Amendment, such as writing a letter to the editor or attending
a peaceful rally.
> 6. Law enforcement agents are
permitted to listen in on discussions between prisoners and their attorneys,
thus denying them their Constitutional right to confidential legal counsel.
> 7. Terrorism suspects may be tried in
secret military tribunals where defendants have no right to a public trial,
no right to trial by jury, no right to confront the evidence, and no right
to appeal to an independent court. In short, the Constitution does not
apply.
> 8. The CIA is granted authority to spy
on American citizens, a power that has previously been denied to this
international espionage organization.
> 9. In addition to the Patriot Act, the
Bush administration has given us Operations TIPS, a government program
that encourages citizens to spy on each other and to report their neighbors'
activities to the authorities. It's EXACLTY the kind of thing for which
we used to fault East Germany and the Soviet Union, and for which we currently
fault Red China and North Korea. Fortunately, Operation TIPS (or AmeriSnitch,
as it's known to its many detractors) seems to have been recalled to the
factory?-- least for now.
(Incidentally, in a clever variation of "two-can-play-at-that-game,"
Brad Templeton has set up a website at
http://www.all-the-other-names-were-taken.com/tipstips.html where you
can report people you suspect of being informants for Operation TIPS.
It's an interesting and amusing site, well worth a look.
> 10. In the wake of Operation
TIPS came something even worse: Total Information Awareness. TIA is a
program of the Defense Department that when fully operational will link
commercial and government databases so that
the DOD can immediately put its finger on any piece of information about
you that it wants. New York Times columnist William Safire writes:
"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription
you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and
e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank
deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend ? all
these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department
describes as 'a virtual, centralized grand database.'"
And that's not all. Who did our president
appoint to head the TIA? Who gets to be Big Brother himself ?
Why it's none other than John Poindexter, a man convicted in 1990 on five
counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents, and obstructing
congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair. Another Hermann Goering,
if there ever was one.
At the same time the Bush administration is probing into your private
life, it is shielding itself from all public scrutiny. It has shredded
the Freedom of Information Act; it has locked away presidential records
not only of the current administration but of administrations going all
the way back to Reagan as well; and it has even locked up Dubya's
gubernatorial records so that the people of Texas can't see what he did
to them while serving as their governor.
Not surprisingly, the Bush administration is also using anti-terror
legislation and executive orders to protect its corporate sponsors from
scrutiny and from prosecution. The drug company Eli Lilly, for instance,
was recently granted immunity from all cases brought against it--even
those initiated long before the war on terrorism--related to a vaccine
it manufactured that turned out to cause autism in many children. (Eli
Lilly contributed over $3 million in the last two election campaigns.)
The Bush administration also protected the Bayer Corporation's
patent on the antibiotic Cipro throughout the anthrax scare, whereas other
countries, such as Canada, broke that patent so that other companies could
make cheaper versions of the drug in case of emergency. It is interesting
to note that during WWII Bayer was part of the I.G. Farben conglomerate,
the top financial contributor to the Nazi Party. I.G.
Farben produced petrol and rubber for the Nazi war machine and it manufactured
the Zyklon B gas that was used to exterminate millions of Jews and other
"enemies of the state." In exchange for these services, the
Nazis provided Farben (and Bayer) with lucrative government contracts
and with slave labor from concentration camps.
Under Dubya's kinder, gentler fascism, U.S. corporations are now
allowed to do business with the Homeland Security Department even if they
cheat the government out of vast amounts of tax revenues by setting up
offshore business fronts in the Caribbean Islands. It used to be that
tax-evaders were tracked down and punished. Now they're rewarded with
fat government contracts. Could the slave labor be far behind?
If only this were the extent of the Bush administration's ramble
down the road to fascism. Way back in November of 2001, William Safire
accused the Bush administration of "seizing dictatorial power."
Well, Mr. Safire, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, just when you
thought we can't lose any more of our liberties and still call ourselves
a "free society," we learn that the Bush administration wants
to take away even more of our rights. A secret document was just leaked
out of John Ashcroft's Justice Department and turned over to the Center
for Public Integrity. Titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of
2003, this document turns out to be a draft of new anti-terrorism legislation,
a vastly more muscular sequel to Patriot Act. If passed, it would grant
the executive branch sweeping new powers of domestic surveillance, and
it would eliminate most of the few remaining checks and balances that
protect us from tyranny. It's the Patriot Act on steroids.
Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity shared this document
with Bill Moyers, who examined it on NOW, his weekly PBS program. That
episode aired Friday, February 7, yet even now, three days later, no mainstream
news broadcaster has picked up this incredible story. Read the NOW transcript
and see the document itself online at http://www.pbs.org/now/.
Dr. David Cole, a Law professor at Georgetown University and author
of Terrorism and the Constitution assessed the document, saying, "I
think this is a quite radical proposal. It authorizes secret arrests.
It would give the Attorney General essentially unchecked authority to
deport anyone who he thought was a danger to our economic interests. It
would strip citizenship from people for lawful political associations."
Secret arrests? Did we hear that right? It seems that the Homeland
Security Department (HSD) is about to become the KGB. The first Patriot
Act already allows for people to be locked up indefinitely without a lawyer
and without being charged with a crime. If Patriot Act II passes, then
arrests would also be secret. That means that dissenters (or anyone else,
for that matter) could disappear without a trace, just as they did in
Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, and in Pinochet's Chile.
Patriot Act II would also grant even more immunity to Big Business.
A corporation could pour toxins into your local river, for instance, and
you wouldn't know about it until all the fish died and your neighbors'
kids were born with missing limbs. And then when you went to court and
demanded to know what that company was dumping in your river, the company
could deny you that information of the grounds that it's a national security
secret. Jim Hightower put it this way: "All a company has to do to
shield anything it wants to keep from the public eye--say, an embarrassing
chemical spill--is give the documents to the Homeland Security Department
and call them 'critical infrastructure information.'"
Ah, but there's even more to be concerned about here. The document
was created back in early January, but so far it appears that the only
members of Congress who even know of its existence are House Speaker Dennis
Hastert and Vice-president Dick Cheney. (The Vice-president presides over
the Senate, which makes him a member of the legislative branch as well
as the executive branch.) This raises a troubling question: Why has the
White House been sitting on this bill for a month? If the CEOs down at
Bush, Inc. really believe that they need these broad new powers to protect
us from terrorists, why not roll out that bill and start the debate? The
answer is all too plain. In all likelihood, the Bush administration was
planning to avoid debate entirely by springing this bill on the American
people in the midst of a perceived national crisis. Perhaps during the
war with Iraq, for instance. Or perhaps in the aftermath of the next terrorist
attack. Or perhaps right after the Reichstag fire.
Had some courageous soul not leaked this document out of the Justice
Department, the White House might easily have succeeded in passing it
through Congress without debate in the midst of our next perceived national
crisis, much as it did with the first Patriot Act in the aftermath of
the September 11 attacks. A thorough debate of this bill right now, under
fairly stable circumstances, would defuse it and prevent its passage even
under more frightening circumstances later on. There's just one problem.
The debate can't begin until more Americans know about this bill, but
so far the Washington Post is the only major news outlet to even MENTION
this story since Bill Moyers broke it on Friday night.
Here's what you can do to help.
First, forward this email to everyone you
know.
Second, join and/or donate money to the American
Civil Liberties Union. You may not agree with every case the ACLU takes
to court, but you won't find a more steadfast defender of the Bill of
Rights anywhere. Find them online at http://www.aclu.org/.
While
you're at there, take the ACLU's "How Free Are We?" quiz at
http://www.aclu.org/Quizzes/QuizIntro.cfm?quizID=4. See if you
can get a perfect score now that you've read this essay.
Third, send an email to the Center for Public
Integrity and to the producers of NOW thanking them for breaking this
story. Here's a sample message that you can use or modify.
I am writing to express my heartfelt thanks
and admiration to the Center for Public Integrity, to Bill Moyers, to
the producers of NOW, and especially to the brave unnamed patriot who
valued the Bill of Rights over his or her own
person well-being and, at great personal risk, leaked a draft of the Domestic
Security Enhancement Act of 2003 out of the Justice Department.
Sincerely,
(Your name, city, and state.)
Center for Public Integrity: feedback@publicintegrity.org
NOW
with Bill Moyers: now@thirteen.org
Fourth,
start the debate over the Patriot Act that the Bush administration wants
to avoid. Send the following email message to the major news outlets
demanding that they investigate and cover this important story.
Here's what you can say:
On Friday, February 7, the PBS program NOW
with Bill Moyers broke an important story about a document recently leaked
to the Center for Public Integrity by an insider at the Justice Department.
That document, titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of
2003, turns out to be a draft of a new bill, much like the
Patriot Act, that would grant the executive branch sweeping and unprecedented
powers to spy on Americans with little or no judicial oversight.
It would also enable polluting and otherwise irresponsible corporations
to hide incriminating documents behind the veil of "national security"
simply by handing them over to the Homeland Security Department.
Such a bill should obviously not pass without a thorough and informed
debate. Please investigate this story immediately and bring it to
the attention of the American people so that such a debate can begin before
we find ourselves in a war with Iraq or in the midst of some other national
crisis. The document can be found on the Web at: http://www.publicintegrity.org/.
Thank you,
(Your name, city, and state.)
New York Times: nytnews@nytimes.com
Los Angeles Times: letters@latimes.com
Wall Street Journal: editors@interactive.wsj.com
ABC News: netaudr@abc.com and niteline@abc.com
NBC News: nightly@nbc.com
MSNBC: world@msnbc.com
CBS News: evening@cbsnews.com (Fax 60 Minutes at: 212-757-6975)
FOX News: comments@foxnews.com
CNN: cnn.feedback@cnn.com
Fifth, write your representative in the House and both of your
Senators to let them know you're mad as hell and you're not going to take
it anymore. Demand a rollback of the Patriot Act and state unequivocally
that you will not tolerate ANY further infringements upon your civil liberties.
If you need help finding your representatives' contact information, check
out our Getting Started page at http://www.theemailactivist.org/GetStart.htm.
Here's a sample of what you might say:
Dear
Senator (or Representative) ________________,
The Patriot Act of 2001 was passed through Congress so hastily
that it was not well-considered nor even read by a great many of the representatives
who voted for it. Now I've come to learn from the PBS program
NOW with Bill Moyers that the Justice Department is hard at work on an
even more draconian version of the Patriot Act called the Domestic Security
Enhancement Act of 2003. This bill can be read online at http://www.publicintegrity.org/.
The original Patriot Act already challenges far too many of our
Constitutional rights to go any longer without a thorough revision and
a rollback of many of its features. The proposed Domestic Security
Enhancement Act of 2003 is an even greater threat to our civil liberties.
If we were to adopt it, we could no longer honestly call ourselves a free
society. I am writing you today to demand that you spearhead a debate
and a revision of the Patriot Act of 2001 and also that you commit yourself
publicly to opposing ANY further infringements of American civil liberties
in the name of fighting terrorism.
Sincerely,
(Your name and address)
Sixth,
commit yourself to a regime change right here at home. Start working now
for the Democratic Party (http://www.democrats.org),
the Green Party (http://www.greenpartyus.org/),
or any political organization you can think of that might bring down the
Bush administration in the next election, if not beforehand. There
are also dozens of "Impeach Bush" petitions online.
Type "impeach bush petitions" into a search engine like Google.com
and sign every damn one of them that comes up.
As always, we thank you for your dedication to true democracy and
to the Bill of Rights, especially in these dangerous times when our leaders
in the White House equate dissent with treason instead of with patriotism.
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