Category Archives: patriotism

Noseblind to Odors in Your Empire?

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By John Rohn Hall

Source: Axis of Logic

Using metaphor or analogy as a creative aid is especially useful when venturing journalistically into uncomfortable, foreign territory, and Trump’s new version of Amerika is indeed uncomfortable and foreign territory. Gotta admit to a serious case of writer’s block for the last couple weeks since The Donald’s coronation fiasco. Where to begin? All my go-to sources came up cold as January days in Jackson Hole…dried up like puddles after a Mohave Desert rainstorm. The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and The Matrix all seemed irrelevant.  George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, or Mark Twain quotes weren’t caustic enough to cut through the slime, nor offer adequate support for a conversation on the subject. But then the Heavens opened up and, through the miracles of Madison Avenue, there was a vehicle available to begin writing anew. A Febreze commercial on HGTV threw a left jab that hit me right between the eyes. Right there on my 46′ Magnavox, a kitchen island in a typical Amerikan home morphed into a back-alley dumpster, complete with roaches, flies, rats, alley cats, garbage, and stench. “Have you gone noseblind to the odors in your home?” the announcer asked. Perhaps, but more importantly, I’d guess that most Amerikans have gone noseblind to odors in their Empire.

And now Donald Trump’s in charge, and he leaves me longing for the pleasant sight of Obama’s smile, that soothing voice, and comforting demeanor. The familiar, believable, lovable, family man. A guy who never lost his cool. When Barack Obama stepped up to the microphone, the sweet, fresh scent of familiarity filled the air. Like the caustic but lively chemical fragrance of Febreze, Obama casually and effortlessly lulled Amerika into dumb insouciance. When Trump takes charge of the same microphone, the resulting clamor smells like a rat-infested dumpster. But then, beauty is in the olfactory receptors of the beholder. In truth, my nose is no more talented than those which decorate the faces of the sea of deplorables, sporting “Make America Great Again!” caps. We’ve all gone noseblind to the stench of Empire. If the truth be told, Amerika stinks under Trump’s watch, it stank during Obama’s eight year reign, it certainly reeked under the orchestration of Bush/Cheney, and the offensive smell lingers in the air just about as far back into the last 500 years of European occupation of The Western Hemisphere as you’d care to go.

Seriously, which odor is more offensive? Trump’s seemingly racist, xenophobic Muslim ban, or Obama’s record of bombing most of the same countries into oblivion? Trump’s signature on a document or Obama’s deadly drone assassination program? All seven Muslim-intensive countries on Trump’s justice-offensive Keep Out List have been subject to invasion or economic sanctions under Obama’s reign. Seems that Obama created the flow of refugees who fear for the lives of their children, and Trump has put out the No Trespassing sign, leaving a sea of desperate people with nowhere to go. The whole thing stinks, and has always stunk. Death and destruction never smell good.

The foul stench emanating from Trump’s Mexican Border Wall Plan is about enough to bring on a case of reverse peristalsis. Taking advantage of Mexico’s weakened condition following three centuries of Spanish occupation, the U.S.A. swooped in and confiscated the entire northern half of that country during The Mexican War. Since then, poor Mexicans have always come in our back door, doing the jobs U.S. Citizens find beneath their dignity, and doing so for slave wages. Obama threw the “illegals” a few bones during his tenure, but managed to deport a record-breaking 2 & 1/2 million of them while he was at it. Trump promises to lock the border and throw away the key. Smells like they’ve both been playing the same nasty game. The stench which filled the air while Obama sat on the throne has neither intensified nor diminished. If you haven’t noticed, you just might be noseblind to the odors of Empire.

We U.S. Citizens shoulder much of the blame for the stinking shenanigans of Empire. We believe the incessant lies of politicians over and over again. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us 45 times, shame on us. We basked in the foul stench of Obama’s promises to end the wars in the Mideast, only to watch as he authorized the invasions of even more helpless, hapless populations. We cheered when he said he’d shut down Guantanamo. It’s a good thing we didn’t hold our breath. More recently, Trump seemed to be making peace with Russia, announced that the U.S.A. should stop attacking other countries, and seemed to be a good option over Hillary NevermetawarIdidntlike Clinton. In his next breath he beat the war drums, promised even more “defense” spending, and pointed a finger of blame and doom at China and Iran. While he was at it, he reaffirmed that along with maintaining a strong presence at Guantanamo, he’d reopen Black Sites abroad, and ramp up our lagging enhanced interrogation program. Ya gotta love torture. Only time will tell when or where our current loose cannon will fire his next stinking verbal barrage.

As a U.S. Citizen, I know a few things (almost) for sure about the Empire I call home. It is on the march, has been on the march since the penning of The Constitution, and will continue its foul, rancid march until somebody breaks both of its legs, and it can march no more. Empire devours everything in its path, then defecates broken countries and peoples into reeking mounds of destruction and death. The path of Empire’s march does not depend upon who holds its highest office and appears to be making all of the important decisions. While such apparent opposites as Obama and Trump appear to be at odds, they both play the game as they’re instructed. ‘Tis a grand illusion. Voting is an act of complete futility, and American Democracy is a lie. Our leaders are selected and assigned from above. As U.S. Citizens, we are no more than resources to be harvested, then cast aside as our utility diminishes and evaporates, our broken, decaying bodies becoming just another layer in the stench of death permeating the skies over the land of the free and home of the brave.

Can We Please Get Rid of the Pledge?

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By Mike Whitney

Source: CounterPunch

The Pledge of Allegiance is not an expression of patriotism. It is a loyalty oath that one normally associates with totalitarian regimes. People who love freedom, should be appalled by the idea our children are being coerced to stand and declare their support for the state. This is the worst form of indoctrination and it is completely anathema to the principals articulated in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I cannot imagine outspoken libertarians like Thomas Jefferson or Tom Paine ever proclaiming their loyalty to the state when they correctly saw the state as the greatest threat to individual freedom. Which it is.

Now I know that many people think the Pledge is simply an affirmation of their respect for the flag, their love for the country, and their gratitude to the men and women who fought in America’s wars. But that’s not what it is. The Pledge is an attempt to impose conformity on the masses and compel them to click their heels and proclaim their devotion to the Fatherland. That’s not how it’s supposed to work in a democracy. In a democracy, the representatives of the state are supposed to pledge their loyalty to the people and to the laws that protect them. That’s the correct relationship between the state and the people. The Pledge turns that whole concept on its head.

Now I’d have no problem if our schoolchildren recited the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence before class every day:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

That’s great stuff, unfortunately, the people who run this country would never allow it. They’d never allow our kids to recite an incendiary, revolutionary document like that every day for fear it would incite violence against the state. What they want is “good Germans”, not revolutionaries, not freedom-loving populists, and not well-informed, critical thinking individuals who can see through the sham of their jingoistic propaganda. They want people who are going to follow the rules, do what they’re told, fight the wars, and perform their worktime drudgery for 30 or 40 years until they’re carted off to the glue factory. That’s what they want. Reciting the Pledge fits perfectly with this dumbed-down version of permanent indentured servitude. It provides the ideological foundation for bovine acquiescence to the demands of the state and the crooks who run it behind the tri-color banner.

The fact that institutions like the Pledge are never challenged in a public format, points to deeper problems with the media and the way our kids are being educated. And while I don’t have time to talk about that now, it makes me wonder where are the people to question these silly recitations that undermine democracy and personal liberty? Why are their voices never heard?

I can’t answer that, but when I see the state deliberately eviscerating habeas corpus and locking away terror suspects for life with no evidence, no witnesses, no due process, no presumption of innocence, no way to defend themselves or claim their innocence in a court of law or before a jury of their peers–when I see the US state assuming the same unchecked, tyrannical powers as all of the dictatorships that went before them– I grow increasingly concerned that this lack of critical thinking is costing the country quite dearly. We are on the verge of losing what-little democracy we have left because people are incapable of looking around and asking ‘what the hell is going on?’

Pulling your head out of the sand and asking questions is not a sign of disloyalty. It’s a sign of intelligence, the kind of intelligence this country needs to stop the bloody wars and get back on track.

So next time you’re in a situation where you’re asked to stand up and recite the pledge, just pause for a minute and ask yourself what it really means. Is it really an expression of “love of country” or a is it a vacuous and demeaning exercise in nationalism that should be done away with ASAP?

I’d say, it’s the latter.

 

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

Related Article: The Truth About the Pledge of Allegiance: Indoctrination & Obedience

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#Brexit confirms: the neoliberal center cannot hold

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By Jerome Roos

Source: ROAR Magazine

The post-Brexit pandemonium has less to do with Britain’s relationship to Europe than it has with elites losing control over the monsters they have created.

Britain finds itself in a general state of pandemonium. The UK is in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis, Prime Minister David Cameron has resigned, and both the country’s governing party and the opposition are in the throngs of a fierce internal power struggle.

As the cheerleaders of the leave campaign dither with no clear plan on how to move forward, the financial consequences continue to ripple through the City: within days, the pound collapsed to its lowest level since 1985, the government’s credit rating was slashed by two full points, and world markets were sent into a tailspin, with a record $3 trillion shaved off stock values on Friday and Monday alone. As if things could not get any worse, recent days have also seen reports of an epidemic of hate crimes spreading across the UK.

Reading the headlines, one could easily be forgiven for experiencing the creeping sensation of living through the postmodern equivalent of the apocalypse: the financial press is providing minute-to-minute coverage of the “battering” of world markets; liberal establishment columnists repeatedly declare this to be Britain’s and Europe’s “worst crisis” since the Second World War; and the New York Times has already held Brexit up as the telltale sign of a world order that is slowly falling apart.

To top it all off, a hysterical Tony Blair took to the same pages last weekend to make a desperate plea in defense of globalization and for more of his failed Third Way recipe, proclaiming in characteristic platitudes that “the center must hold” ­— as if Yeats’ “blood-dimmed tide” and “mere anarchy” were about to be loosed upon the world once more.

The immediate cause for all the commotion is clear: Cameron’s risky bet to hold a referendum on Britain’s EU membership has backfired disastrously. The unexpected victory for the leave camp has shaken both Unions to their very core, dividing left and right on either side of the Channel and burning all bridges between them. There is no denying the historic nature of these developments; the world is a different place after last Thursday, and it is clear that Europe and Britain now find themselves in uncharted territory.

Yet the unspeakable truth is that, at a deeper level, the financial fallout and political pandemonium of recent days has less to do with Britain’s place in Europe than it has with the widening gulf between political elites and European citizens more generally. While racism and anti-immigrant sentiment have been central to the leave campaign from the very start, it is difficult to believe that all 52 percent of Britons who voted leave are committed fascists. Many of these people are ordinary working class folks who are simply fed up with the erosion of their living standards, the disintegration of their communities, and the lack of responsiveness of their political representatives and the unaccountable technocracy that has “taken control” over their lives. Brexit was first and foremost a political statement by the dispossessed and disempowered.

The reason this statement has proven so explosive is because the referendum happened to sit on the convergence point of a number of profoundly unstable social and political fault-lines, all of which were shaking well before Brexit, all of which would have trembled even in the absence of Brexit, and all of which will continue to quake and thunder for a very long time after Brexit. It is highly unlikely that a victory for remain would have produced a very different outcome in the long run — it would certainly not have stemmed any of the discontent, pacified any of the social tensions, or resolved any of the political conflicts that underlie the referendum’s shock outcome.

While Brexit clearly hands victory to the bigots of UKIP and the Tory right, a victory for remain would simply have perpetuated the anti-democratic neoliberal masochism that produced the motivation for people to align themselves with these bigots in the first place. In this light, we have to stop seeing the rabid nationalism of the far-right and the neoliberal cosmopolitanism of the pro-EU camp as polar opposites — in reality, the former is the logical outgrowth of the latter; its deformed Siamese twin in flesh and blood. The only thing the pro-EU camp was able to offer British voters was a continuation of the structural conditions that led to Brexit, combined with fanatical fear-mongering over the consequences of that outcome.

Ultimately, the British vote to leave the EU, whether it eventually materializes or not (and there is no guarantee that it will), is symptomatic of a much deeper and much more debilitating crisis: a structural crisis of democratic capitalism that has in recent years evolved from a global financial crisis into a deepening legitimation crisis of the political establishment, which is now in turn exploding into a full-blown crisis of governability of the existing social and political order. The fault-lines currently opening up in British and European politics would have eventually laid waste to the stability of the continent’s postwar order regardless of the outcome of this particular referendum. Brexit will simply speed up that ongoing process of political decomposition.

It is important to remember in this respect that David Cameron did not call this referendum because he truly cared about the opinion of ordinary people on the EU. Like Alexis Tsipras last year, he called the referendum in a risky and desperate gambit to keep his flailing party together — to silence the Tories’ eurosceptic right wing, disarm the constant backbencher challenges to his leadership, and inoculate the government against future defections to UKIP. This vote was never really about the EU; it was about one of the figureheads of Europe’s crumbling neoliberal center trying to reassert his hold over a party that was once the stable bedrock of the UK’s landed aristocracy and its metropolitan bourgeoisie, but that is now rapidly disintegrating in the face of a resurgent reactionary right.

The ongoing coup against Jeremy Corbyn similarly has little to do with Europe. As an article in the Telegraph from June 13 confirms, Labour MPs and the Blairite wing of the party have been plotting an anti-Corbyn revolt for weeks, if not months, aiming to bring down their leftist leader in “a 24-hour blitz” after the referendum, regardless of its outcome. Again, this is not about the EU; it is about the incompetent lackeys of a crumbling neoliberal center trying to reclaim their hold over a party that was once Europe’s most enthusiastic cheerleader of neoliberalism, financialization and overseas military intervention, but that is now rapidly disintegrating — or realigning itself — in the face of an insurgent “hard” left.

In this respect, Blair’s apocalyptic reference to Yeats in his New York Times opinion piece was awkwardly on point: things are falling apart; the center cannot hold. This is the crux of the matter, and it helps explain the hysterical doomsday discourse of the centrist establishment: their globalized post-democratic fantasy world is crumbling before their very eyes, as their once-passive voter-cum-consumer base is suddenly gobbled up and mobilized by a motley crew of “angry populists” who thrive on the electoral spoils of a crippling legitimation crisis and feast on the popular discontent sowed by years of austerity and decades of neoliberal restructuring.

The answer to the steady disintegration of the established political order clearly cannot be more of the same. Against Blair’s hopeless cries that “the center must hold”, and against the thinly-veiled conspiracies of his neoliberal acolytes in Parliament — who are now closing in on Jeremy Corbyn in a last-ditch attempt to reclaim the Labour Party and destroy from within, once and for all, the only political force that could possibly pose an electoral counterweight to the far-right in this defining moment in British history — against all of these turncoats, the left must stand firm and insist: the center will fall.

But to avoid ceding the resulting void to the racists and reactionaries, the weakened and dispersed forces of the left will need to rally in face of the historic battles now coming their way. Despair as one may, this means the choice is now fairly straightforward: it’s Corbyn or nothing. Not because the embattled Labour leader will bring democratic socialism or fully automated luxury communism to a newly independent Britain, but because this decent, principled leftist is now the only bulwark still standing between ordinary working people of all colors, and the monsters that are about to be unleashed on them.

About the author:

Jerome Roos is the founder and editor of ROAR Magazine, and a researcher in International Political Economy at the European University Institute. For more on his research and writings, visit jeromeroos.com.

The Truth About the Pledge of Allegiance: Indoctrination & Obedience

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By Aaron and Melissa Dykes

Source: HumansAreFree.com

A look into the origins of the pledge of allegiance – mandatory regurgitation for school children – reveals that it was actually created by a magazine in 1892 in order to sell flags to schools, and the pledge was created by Francis Bellamy to create a reason for schools to buy the flags.

In turn, this social ritual creates cohesion and unity in the mind of the public with the federal government.

Until it was changed in the 1940s, the salute was actually a military salute wherein children then “hailed” the flag in a fashion very similar to what was done in Nazi Germany.

American children were instead trained to put their hand over their hearts… and the phrase “under God” wasn’t added until 1954 in the Eisenhower Administration – controlled from the shadows by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen.

The 20th Century was the era of collectivism. During the same general time period that communism, fascism and national socialism swept over the land, America quietly transformed into a nation dominated by central government, and swarmed with agencies under the executive branch.

In the midst of cities and technology, traditions of independence and self-reliance were replaced by collectivism – where the greater good took precedence over the needs and rights of the individual. Social Security and other programs put everyone on the State farm.

How Schools Train Kids to Be Good Little Statists

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Govt-Hollywood Complex to Sell “Patriotic” Martial Law Lockdown in New Boston Bombing Films

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By Berie Suarez

Source: Truth and Art TV

A massive wave of government propaganda is coming and the method of transmission will be Hollywood. Hollywood is one of the most important brainwashing tools to keep the masses ignorant of reality and government corruption. And as we’ve seen in the past, it is designed to reinforce numerous government lies the masses are supposed to believe. Whenever Hollywood releases a film endorsing a government narrative it usually represents the final phase of a false flag, staged event narrative being sold.

Remember what former CIA director William Casey said. Until EVERYTHING that everyone believes is a lie, the control system feels they are not done lying to you yet.

When it comes to propaganda Hollywood operates under a different set of rules as they have the liberty to fictionally represent a story under the guise of “entertainment” without having to be accurate about what really happened. A close look at this issue reveals how powerful and effective the Hollywood-Government complex is at cementing massive government lies in the psyche of the general public.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that it is being reported that Hollywood producers are in race to put out not one but two films about the Boston bombing hoax staged in April of 2013 featuring numerous crisis actors. One film “Patriots Day” will serve to not only reinforce the Boston bombing staged event but to glorify “lockdown” and deceive viewers into worshiping police and psychologically re-accepting that lockdown was necessary to catch the “bad guys”, thus serving to authenticate future lockdowns as necessary as well. Another film being scheduled for release this year “Boston Strong” is also based on the Boston bombing false flag event and the concept of heroism. Both films appear to correlate “strength” with obedience to lockdown as well as “patriotism” and obedience to lockdown, and both are psychological operations on the general public being likely secretly funded by the state.

So without any shame, the storyline behind Patriots Day admits the idea is to sell the manhunt against the Tsarnaev accused patsy brothers itself and the lockdown of Watertown which ensued. The lockdown itself seems to be the focus of the emotion and heroism in these movies more so than the overall false flag narrative which has been debunked and exposed on many levels.

The story of course, is told by lucky Ed Davis, the commissioner that just so happened to get a phone call right at the time of the pressure cooker detonation, and like lucky Larry Silverstein on 9/11 he wasn’t blown up. Davis was just as “lucky” as all those “Craft International” operatives clearly seen all over the place with suspicious backpacks and communicating suspiciously before during and after the explosion.

Commissioner Davis, who was right there are the marathon finish line and walked away to take a phone call moments before the blast occurred, played an integral role working with the FBI, Watertown Police Department, Boston Police Department, Massachusetts State Police and local first responders to track, identify and apprehend the suspected bombers. Their tactics included the use of sophisticated identity technology (they actually discovered the murderers acting differently than the crowd) and giving the historic order to put the city of Boston on lockdown as they rushed to catch the suspects.

The story is envisioned as an intense thriller, spanning the five-day search up to the infamous siege where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was pulled from a boat in Watertown. Three lost their lives at the Marathon blast site, 264 were injured, and a police officer was killed and several injured in the shootout that ended in the death of Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan. The younger mass murderer is currently on trial. Victims were eulogized in a touching ceremony at Fenway Park, something that most certainly will be part of each of those feature films, including an unforgettable exhortation of defiance by Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.

This is a clever attempt to appeal to everyone’s emotional and “patriotic” feelings, 9/11 Bush Jr style, while selling them that martial law lockdown is somehow “patriotic” because it helped catch the bad guys.

“There is nothing more compelling than a real story populated by real heroes,” said CBS Films President Terry Press. “The team that we have assembled for this project is determined to give audiences a very personal look at what occurred during the days when the eyes of the world were on the city of Boston and how a group of contemporary patriots faced this crisis.”

Anyone who cares about truth, freedom, and morality should be outraged by this in-your-face propaganda. This also serves as a warning of things to come. Very likely they are rushing these two films because something is coming and they need to condition the masses for a major lockdown.

I’m calling for readers to help take a stand against “lockdown” now before it’s too late. I’m currently in the process of researching how to properly draft a petition that can be used broadly across the U.S. to demand that lockdown is criminalized as illegal, not to mention it’s an ineffective and unproven tactic for catching law breakers. If anyone wants to help and contribute to the process please do or by all means carry out the idea yourself.

This entire effort by the Hollywood-Government complex to expedite the production of these two films which will glorify lockdown should concern everyone. Ask yourself: Why are they moving so fast to glorify lockdown? And why now? I’m sure we’ll soon find out.

Fascism, American style

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By John W. Whitehead

Source: Intrepid Report

“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.”―Henry A. Wallace, 33rd Vice President of the United States

This is an indictment of every politician who has ever sold us out for the sake of money and power, it is a condemnation of every politician who has ever lied to us in order to advance their careers, and it is a denunciation of every political shill who has sacrificed our freedoms on the altar of Corporate America.

They’re all fascists.

If Donald Trump is a fascist—as nearly half of Americans surveyed believe—then so is every other politician in office or running for office in America who has ever prioritized money and power over human beings.

Truly, apart from Trump’s virulently bombastic comments and his metaphorical willingness to spit in the wind in order to garner media coverage and notoriety, how is he any more of a fascist than Hillary Clinton and the millions she has amassed from the financial sector?

How is Trump any more of a fascist than Barack Obama, whose willingness to march in lockstep with the military industrial complex has resulted in endless wars, covert drone strikes that have killed hundreds of civilians abroad, and militarized police who have killed thousands of American citizens here at home?

How is Trump any more of a fascist than Congress, the majority of whom are millionaires and who are more inclined to do the bidding of their corporate sponsors and benefactors, all the while remaining deaf to their less affluent constituents?

For that matter, how is Trump any more of a fascist than the Supreme Court whose decisions in recent years have been characterized most often by an abject deference to government authority, military and corporate interests?

Writing for the New York Times in 1944, Vice President Henry A. Wallace noted that “American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust . . .”

As Wallace concluded, American fascists are not pro-Constitution:

They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead . . . They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

We are being played for fools. Again.

The United States of America, that dream of what a democratic republic ought to be, has become the Fascist States of America. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age. You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state.

Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same.

Driven by our fears, we have entered into a corporate-controlled, militaristic state where all citizens are suspects, security trumps freedom, and the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens but instead is ruled by the rich and powerful.

Any semblance of constitutional government that we might still enjoy today is a mere shadow, a mockery of what the founders envisioned. Constitutional government today—much like the farcical circus that purports to be the presidential election—is a sham, a hoax, an elaborate ruse maintained by the powers-that-be to mollify us into believing that we still have a say in the workings of our government. We do not.

Shortly after World War II, historian William L. Shirer predicted that America may be the first country in which fascism comes to power through democratic elections.

Former presidential advisor Bertram Gross also warned that we would not recognize fascism when it took over:

Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties, or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of creeping fascism . . . In America, it would be supermodern and multi-ethnic—as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards, and apple pie. It would be fascism with a smile. As a warning against its cosmetic facade, subtle manipulation, and velvet gloves, I call it friendly fascism. What scares me most is its subtle appeal.

They were both right.

However, what we failed to realize is that the fascist coup took place long ago. It was that subtle and that incremental.

We are now ruled by the velvet-gloved, technologically savvy, militarized iron fist of what Gross termed “friendly fascism” or fascism with a smile. Having studied Shirer and Gross, tracked the rise of fascism in past regimes, and assimilated the necessary ingredients for a fascist state, I can attest to the fact—as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People—that the parallels to modern America are impossible to ignore.

Under fascism, the government:

  • is managed by a powerful leader (even if he or she assumes office by way of the electoral process)
  • assumes it is not restrained in its power (this is authoritarianism, which eventually evolves into totalitarianism)
  • ostensibly operates under a capitalist system while being undergirded by an immense bureaucracy
  • emits powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism through its politicians
  • has an obsession with national security while constantly invoking terrifying internal and external enemies
  • establishes a domestic and invasive surveillance system and develops a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the citizenry
  • and its various agencies (federal, state, and local) develop an obsession with crime and punishment (this is overcriminalization)
  • becomes increasingly centralized while aligning closely with corporate powers to control all aspects of the country’s social, economic, military, and governmental structures
  • uses militarism as a center point of its economic and taxing structure
  • and is increasingly imperialistic in order to maintain the military-industrial corporate forces.

Compare that to America today where, as economist Jeffrey Tucker rightly observes, “every industry is regulated. Every profession is classified and organized. Every good or service is taxed. Endless debt accumulation is preserved. Immense doesn’t begin to describe the bureaucracy. Military preparedness never stops, and war with some evil foreign foe, remains a daily prospect.”

Fascism thrives by hiding behind the entertainment spectacle that is partisan politics. As Tucker points out, “It’s incorrect to call fascism either right wing or left wing. It is both and neither . . . fascism does not seek to overthrow institutions like commercial establishments, family, religious centers, and civic traditions. It seeks to control them . . . it preserves most of what people hold dear but promises to improve economic, social, and cultural life through unifying their operations under government control.”

In this way, American-style fascism is deceptively appealing.

It appears friendly.

The news media covers the entertainment and political trivia. The basic forms of government remain intact. The legislators remain in session. There are elections.

Consent of the governed, however, no longer applies. Actual control has finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.

Yet the most crucial ingredient for fascism to succeed in America is that the majority of the people would have to agree that it’s not only expedient but necessary for the government to assume greater powers in order to keep them safe and secure, whether it’s by militarizing the police, stripping them of basic constitutional rights, criminalizing virtually every form of behavior, or spying on their communications, movements and transactions.

Sound familiar?

When you really drill down to what the various presidential candidates believe about the issues that will impact the future of our freedoms long-term—war, surveillance, civil liberties—you’ll find that most of them support the government’s position, which, conveniently enough, profits the corporate sector.

This is not freedom.

It is despotism, which Gross refers to as “faceless oligarchs [who] sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades.” Gross explains:

In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion . . .

It is, in Gross’ words, “pretended patriots who desecrate the American flag by waving it while waiving the law”:

I see at present members of the Establishment or people on its fringes who, in the name of Americanism, betray the interests of most Americans by fomenting militarism, applauding rat-race individualism, protecting undeserved privilege, or stirring up nationalistic and ethnic hatreds.

It is, concludes Gross, Big Business and Big Government in bed together:

In this present, many highly intelligent people look with but one eye and see only one part of the emerging Leviathan. From the right, we are warned against the danger of state capitalism or state socialism, in which Big Business is dominated by Big Government. From the left, we hear that the future danger (or present reality) is monopoly capitalism, with finance capitalists dominating the state. I am prepared to offer a cheer and a half for each view; together, they make enough sense for a full three cheers.Big Business and Big Government have been learning how to live in bed together and despite arguments between them, enjoy the cohabitation. Who may be on top at any particular moment is a minor matter—and in any case can be determined only by those with privileged access to a well-positioned keyhole.

When the votes have all been counted, “we the people” will be the losers.

The joke will be on us. Whether we ever realize it not, the enemy is not across party lines, as they would have us believe. It has us surrounded on all sides.

Even so, we’re not yet defeated.

We could still overcome our oppressors if we cared enough to join forces and launch a militant nonviolent revolution—a people’s revolution that starts locally and trickles upwards—but that will take some doing.

It will mean turning our backs on the political jousting contests taking place on the national stage and rejecting their appointed jesters as false prophets. It will mean not allowing ourselves to be corralled like cattle and branded with political labels that have no meaning anymore. It will mean recognizing that all the evils that surround us today—endless wars, drone strikes, invasive surveillance, militarized police, poverty, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, etc.—were not of our making but came about as a way to control and profit from us.

It will mean “voting with our feet” through sustained, mass civil disobedience. As journalist Chris Hedges points out, “There were once radicals in America, people who held fast to moral imperatives. They fought for the oppressed because it was right, not because it was easy or practical. They were willing to accept the state persecution that comes with open defiance. They had the courage of their convictions. They were not afraid.”

Ultimately, it will mean refusing to be divided, one against each other, as Democrats versus Republicans, and instead uniting behind the only distinction that has ever mattered: “we the people” against tyranny.

 

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book “The Freedom Wars” (TRI Press) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

 

People Over Politics: Michigan Militia Joins Michael Moore to Protest Flint Water Crisis

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By Carey Wedler

Source: Anti-Media

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan has inspired an unlikely partnership: a local militia group is coordinating with outspoken liberal filmmaker Michael Moore to demand accountability and clean water for residents.

Moore, a Flint native who first gained notoriety for his his documentary on the town’s economic hardships, has spoken out against the state and local government’s negligent handling of the disaster. The high volume of lead in public water supplies has contaminated children’s blood and led Flint’s mayor to declare a state of emergency.

The crisis has drawn widespread attention and outrage.

At a rally on January 16, Michael Moore said, “I am standing in the middle of a crime scene. Ten people have been killed … because of a decision to save money.” The city’s water supply was changed from Detroit’s water supply to the Flint River in 2014, in spite of the new source’s reputation for being filled with contaminants like raw sewage and tires.

As Anti-Media previously reported, “The shift in supply was a result of failed procedures and negotiations to continue purchasing the water.”

Further, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality has admitted its failure in not requiring that non-corrosive additives be added to the water during treatment to counteract the lead that seeps into water from old pipes. Authorities at the state level reportedly belittled concerns from Flint’s local community about the quality of their water. The national EPA has also been criticized for its involvement (or lack thereof) in the water crisis.

These examples of incompetence and corruption, along with the residents’ ongoing suffering, led Moore to speak out. Meanwhile, the Michigan militia, known as the Genesee County Volunteer Militia, has been working with the Red Cross to deliver clean water door-to-door, making stops that include a senior living facility and an elementary school.  The Detroit Free Press reported that in a news release, the militia said, “It is nothing less than shocking that our elected officials would try to hide the hazards that residents are being subjected to just by drinking a simple glass of tap water!!!” Further, the group demanded more information from the government on who was “involved in a coverup.”

Details have emerged that suggest Governor Rick Snyder and his administration ignored  warnings about the looming crisis — and that Snyder has since tried to cover up this prior knowledge. He released emails this week that were largely redacted, and Michael Moore has called for his arrest.

The militia is planning a rally for Sunday at 2pm at the City of Flint Municipal Center, and is working with Moore to ensure voices of dissent are continually heard.

“We’re trying to coordinate so the protests don’t stop,” Dave McKellar, a member of the right-wing armed force said. He owns a tree service business in Flint.

McKellar expressed his willingness to work with More in spite of differences of opinion on other matters. “We don’t see eye-to-eye on many things,” said McKellar. “For him to step forward and say something good… this time I agree with him.”

As McKellar said of the militia, “What we are is a constitutional defense force. We protect people who can’t protect themselves in time of disaster, be it man-made or other.” Still, the militia has made it clear its focus is not on weapons, but on the crisis at hand. The group posted on Facebook about its upcoming Sunday protest, noting, “We ask that you only wear side arms and not long rifles, this is not about our 2nd Amendment, this is about the infringement on the good people of Flint.”

The alliance between the militia and Michael Moore is admittedly unlikely. One of Moore’s most successful films, Bowling for Columbine, focused on the negative effects of guns in America, and the left’s reaction to the Oregon standoff — including calls to drone strike the so-called “domestic terrorists” have highlighted contentious, long-running divisions between armed protest movements and liberal causes. Animosity between left and right in the United States has reached fever-pitch on countless issues, from healthcare to police brutality to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Nevertheless, the two seemingly conflicting parties have placed the health of their fellow citizens above partisan hatred. Though they do not appear to have established a permanent relationship, Moore and the militia’s collaboration suggests that, perhaps, Americans can share a common cause.

Indeed, a wide variety of groups have stepped up to help residents of Flint. In addition to Michael Moore, the militia, and the Red Cross, an Islamic charity, local activists, and a Native American tribe have committed to helping the struggling community, along with countless Americans across the country.

This article (People Over Politics: Michigan Militia Joins Michael Moore to Protest Flint Water Crisis) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Kai Schreiber. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

To France from a Post-9/11 America: Lessons We Learned Too Late

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By John W. Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. 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 in any country.”—Hermann Goering, German military commander and Hitler’s designated successor

For those who remember when the first towers fell on 9/11, there is an unnerving feeling of déjà vu about the Paris attacks.

Once again, there is that same sense of shock. The same shocking images of carnage and grief dominating the news. The same disbelief that anyone could be so hateful, so monstrous, so evil as to do this to another human being. The same outpourings of support and unity from around the world. The same shared fear that this could easily have happened to us or our loved ones.

Now the drums of war are sounding. French fighter jets have carried out a series of “symbolic” air strikes on Syrian targets. France’s borders have been closed, Paris has been locked down and military personnel are patrolling its streets.

What remains to be seen is whether France, standing where the United States did 14 years ago, will follow in America’s footsteps as she grapples with the best way to shore up her defenses, where to draw the delicate line in balancing security with liberty, and what it means to secure justice for those whose lives were taken.

Here are some of the lessons we in the United States learned too late about allowing our freedoms to be eviscerated in exchange for the phantom promise of security.

Beware of mammoth legislation that expands the government’s powers at the citizenry’s expense. Rushed through Congress a mere 45 days after the 9/11 attacks, the USA Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, undermined civil liberties, expanded the government’s powers and opened the door to far-reaching surveillance by the government on American citizens.

Pre-emptive strikes will only lead to further blowback. Not content to wage war against Afghanistan, which served as the base for Osama bin Laden, the U.S. embarked on a pre-emptive war against Iraq in order to “stop any adversary challenging America’s military superiority and adopt a strike-first policy against terrorist threats ‘before they’re fully formed.’” We are still suffering the consequences of this failed policy, which has resulted in lives lost, taxpayer dollars wasted, the fomenting of hatred against the U.S. and the further radicalization of terrorist cells.

War is costly. There are many reasons to go to war, but those who have advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, are the very entities that have profited most from these endless military occupations and exercises. Thus far, the U.S. taxpayer has been made to shell out more than $1.6 trillion on “military operations, the training of security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, weapons maintenance, base support, reconstruction, embassy maintenance, foreign aid, and veterans’ medical care, as well as war-related intelligence operations not tracked by the Pentagon” since 2001. Other estimates that account for war-related spending, veterans’ benefits and various promissory notes place that figure closer to $4.4 trillion. That also does not include the more than 210,000 civilians killed so far, or the 7.6 million refugees displaced from their homes as a result of the endless drone strikes and violence.

Advocating torture makes you no better than terrorists. The horrors that took place at Abu Ghraib, the American-run prison in Iraq, continue to shock those with any decency. Photographs leaked to the media depicted “US military personnel humiliating, hurting and abusing Iraqi prisoners in a myriad of perverse ways. While American servicemen and women smiled and gave thumbs up, naked men were threatened by dogs, or were hooded, forced into sexual positions, placed standing with wires attached to their bodies, or left bleeding on prison floors.” Adding to the descent into moral depravity, the United States government legalized the use of torture, including waterboarding, in violation of international law and continues to sanction human rights violations in the pursuit of national security. The ramifications have been far-reaching, with local police now employing similar torture tactics at secret locations such as Homan Square in Chicago.

Allowing the government to spy on the citizenry will not reduce acts of terrorism, but it will result in a watched, submissive, surveillance society. A byproduct of this post 9/11-age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers such as Google that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere. We are all becoming data collected in government files. The chilling effect of this endless surveillance is a more anxious and submissive citizenry.

Don’t become so distracted by the news cycle that you lose sight of what the government is doing. The average American has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the “events,” manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork and keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the reality of the American police state. Whether these events are critical or unimportant, when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this. In this way, regularly scheduled trivia and/or distractions that keep the citizenry tuned into the various breaking news headlines and entertainment spectacles also keep them tuned out to the government’s steady encroachments on their freedoms.

If you stop holding the government accountable to the rule of law, the only laws it abides by will be the ones used to clamp down on the citizenry. Having failed to hold government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the American people have found themselves saddled with a government that skirts, flouts and violates the Constitution with little consequence. Overcriminalization, asset forfeiture schemes, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, warrantless surveillance, SWAT team raids, indefinite detentions, covert agencies, and secret courts are just a few of the egregious practices carried out by a government that operates beyond the reach of the law.

Do not turn your country into a battlefield, your citizens into enemy combatants, and your law enforcement officers into extensions of the military. A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the citizenry of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead? It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, we in America now find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.

As long as you remain fearful and distrustful of each other, you will be incapable of standing united against any threats posed by a power-hungry government. Early on, U.S. officials solved the problem of how to implement their authoritarian policies without incurring a citizen uprising: fear. The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers). They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being. Most of all, they want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.

If you trade your freedom for security, the terrorists win. We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade a freedom-loving people to march in lockstep with a police state. And in so doing, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”

To sum things up, the destruction that began with the 9/11 terror attacks has expanded into an all-out campaign of terror, trauma, acclimation and indoctrination aimed at getting Americans used to life in the American Police State. The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time, but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has transitioned us to life in a society where government agents routinely practice violence on the citizens while, in conjunction with the Corporate State, spying on the most intimate details of our personal lives.

The lesson learned, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, is simply this: once you start down the road towards a police state, it will be very difficult to turn back.