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OLD American Century / White Rose Society message boards _ History _ Nazi Paramiliary Groups and Arizona Minutemen--Now Blackwater
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:07 pm
The purpose of this thread is to document how private soldiers and private organizations are used in right-wing political activities as para-military organizations. Eventually, these para-military expect reward for their thuggery and seek acceptance into the government formally. We can see this process with the evolution of the SS and SA in Nazi Germany. We can see the same dynamics in American society today with paramilitary groups, many former US soldiers, volunteering to assist the government with national security issues in an environment where everything is viewed as a national security issue. This examination is necessary because the United States government and the main stream media protects the identities of these groups and conceals the historical backgrounds of these individuals when their activities become unavoidably known.
History seems to be repeating itself. The first use of the para-military German Freikorps was to patrol the eastern border of Germany in 1919.
"Armed free-corps [Freikorps] bans sprang up all over Germany and were secretly equipped by the Reishswehr [Regular Army]. At first they mainly used to fight the Poles and the Balts on the disputed eastern frontiers, but soon they were backing plots for the overthrow of the republican regime. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 33)"
Nazi Paramilitary Groups:SA and SS
http://mars.wnec.edu/%7Egrempel/courses/germany/lectures/26paramilitary.html
The most important Nazi Paramilitary organizations where the SA (Sturm Abteilung, literally Storm Troops) and the SS (Schutzstaffel, literally Elite Echelon). The HJ or Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) was not really a paramilitary organizaiton in the beginning, since it was designed to organize and recruit young people for the Nazi movement.
The antecedent of Himmler's "Black Corps," or SS, is to be found in Hitler's private bodyguard, formed before the 1923 Putsch from a small clique of desperados known as the Assault Squad. The Assault Squad's few men, demobilized NCOs, freebooters, laborers, and adventurers, shared utter loyalty to the person of Hitler, whom they had sworn to protect at all costs.
The Assault Squad was led by an SA man, Julius Schreck, and a stationer who worked in the party treasury, Joseph Berchtold. It was prepared to perform whatever task their Führer gave them, usually requiring muscle or a show of force. Thus 50 of Berchtold's men, already wearing black-bordered swastika armbands and black ski-caps with a silver death's head button, accompanied Hitler when he made his melodramatic entry into the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8, 1923, to announce the misadventure known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Five of them were killed during the melee with the police in front of the Odeonplatz. At the time the SA probably had about 2,000 men and the Assault Squad no more than 100, reflecting their respective importance then and later.
The strong-arm wing of the party had a rather innocuous beginning as the "gymnastics and sport section," founded by Emil Maurice, a 23 year old watchmaker, in November 1920. After Hitler seized control of the party in the following year, and changed the name to Sturmabteilung, expansion in size and role helped to solidify his own control and create an activist core for the movement. A notorious Free Corps leader, Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, provided recruits and money. The nascent SA was different from the numerous Free Corps, composed largely of veterans who had served the new government as a kind of counter-revolutionary force. They later created a militaristic subculture, violently opposed to the Weimar Republic. The SA, however, appealed to youth and restricted membership to those between the ages of 17 and 23. It was much younger, included fewer veterans, and gave the party much of its bravado. Battling the communist and socialist "enemy," was the main task of the SA, and helped to turn it into "the most active and radical paramilitary organization in Bavaria" already before 1923.
During the Putsch the SA was hardly distinguishable from the other völkisch groups in the coalition Hitler put together for the coup. After its failure, Hermann Göring, the actual commander of the SA in 1923, went into exile, Hitler and other leaders were in jail, and all party organizations were outlawed. Captain Ernst Röhm, most active liaison officer of the Bavarian Reichswehr to the paramilitary organizations, had been the main organizer of the early SA. When he was released from prison in April 1924, Röhm proceeded to reactivate SA units throughout the country and organize them, along with other völkisch paramilitary groups, into the Frontbann.
This organization, which acquired some 40,000 members, was a military association in the old style, whereas Hitler wanted a political combat league more appropriate to the legal course he adopted after the Putsch. When Hitler began to rebuild the party in 1925, he refused to accept the Frontbann, while Röhm declined Hitler's offer to command a new SA. Röhm could not agree - and never really did - that this paramilitary tool should be at the discretionary disposal of the political leadership and shed its purely military characteristics. Röhm then went off to Bolivia in a sulking mood, the Frontbann disintegrated, and the SA submitted to direction from local party leaders. Significant growth began with the appointment of Captain Franz Pfeffer von Salomon as Supreme SA Leader (OSAF) in the fall of 1926. He built the SA into a disciplined and reliable party army, which fought the "internal enemy" by violent means.
Uncertainty over the basic character of the SA, alerted Hitler to the need for a totally reliable force, a kind of praetorian guard, which would put a check on the rowdy streetfighters. In February 1925, before the SA was officially reborn, Hitler created small elite echelons (Schutzstaffeln) in various cities where SA units already existed. Two months later the miniscule SS, patterned to some degree on the extinct Assault Squad, revealed its essential future character by serving as funeral torchbearers for the former police president of Munich. But in the shadow of an expanding SA, the SS barely maintained its existence under several ineffective leaders. In July 1926, during the same party rally which recognized Kurt Gruber's HJ at Weimar, the SS was declared to be the elite organization of the party.
In an arcane ceremony, typical of many mysterious practices with which the SS was to be associated, the "blood banner" which had been stained during the conflict with the police on the Odeonplatz in 1923, was transferred to the SS for safekeeping. The SS was not to exceed ten percent of SA strength in any one locality. Such deliberate restriction enforced its elitist feeling, while stern discipline turned the SS man into "the most exemplary party member conceivable." Neither hard-bitten party bosses, nor swaggering and uncouth SA commanders took kindly to the elitist pretensions of the SS and used them mainly to run errands, recruit party members, and sell newspapers. In January 1929, when the SS had some 1,200 members, things began to change quickly. Hitler appointed a little known and apparently unassuming 28 year old party bureaucrat Reichsführer of the SS. His name was Heinrich Himmler, surely one of the strangest and most unfathomable men in modern history. During his short sojourn he has left a trail of blood and terror behind him which few can equal.
At the time Himmler was hardly noticed or appreciated, having served as secretary and deputy to party propaganda chief, Gregor Strasser. Coming from a proper Catholic middle-class family, with a father who had been tutor to the Bavarian royal house and had a successful career as professor and director of several prestigious Bavarian Gymnasia, Himmler's upbringing was anything but irregular. Psychohistorians have found reason to believe that his prolonged adolescence consisted of an unsuccessful effort to master libidinal drives, forcing him to resort to obsessive repression, projection, and exaggerated self-discipline. He is supposed to have developed an inordinate identification with his tyrannical father, later replaced by surrogates, like Röhm and Strasser (both of whom he helped to murder subsequently), but the most notable of which was to be Hitler. Weak object relation and the lack of a feeling of self-worth and distinct individuality, theoretically, led him to imbibe the prevailing values of the post-war generation. These values included xenophobic nationalism, fear of conspiratorial secret societies like Freemasons, and Jews, militaristic violence and social probity.
Although the young Himmler's conversion to the völkisch ideology was gradual, almost accidental by virtue of his random but avaricious reading habits, he developed two early obsessions, the satisfactions of a military life and the appeals of character-building agrarian pursuits. These were to find their perverse fulfillment in the Waffen-SS and a population policy based on the blood and soil ideology. While these aspects of his wartime career may have been in part the result of an unsuccessful adolescence, they were imposed on thousands of adolescents whose formative years were probably no more successful than his and whose choices were more restricted. He also develop an early interest in spying, which he practiced on his older brother Gebhard's fiance, alleging that she was promiscuous and hence unfit for inclusion in the Himmler family. Eventually he managed to break up the romance.
In a conventional sense, the young Himmler was certainly more successful than most of his contemporaries. He completed military training as a cadet, a career in uniform being stymied by the end of the war. Completing his studies in agronomy at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, he made a career for himself as a minor bureaucrat in the Nazi Party, in part because he could not find a post as farm manager, although he was willing to go anywhere, even Russia and Turkey. At the same time he pursued his ambitions in the Artamanen, an agrarian youth movement, the paramilitary Reichskriegsflagge, and even tried his hand at scientific poultry-breeding. His marriage to an older woman was not too promising from the start, and may have had something to do with his unrealistic but conventional conception of women as weak and subordinate, fit primarily for domestic chores and childbearing.
The SS provided Himmler with an outlet, particularly his penchant for order, detail, organizational finesse, and misplaced sense of moral and social rectitude. His father's pedantry, which went so far as to correct his son's diary entries, played a role here. The feeling of superiority, which these attitudes generated, compensated for inner emptiness, the absence of self-assurance and a satisfying sense of moral values. He naturally adopted Hitler as his superego, replacing an earlier fascination with Ernst Röhm. Himmler built up the SS, as a consequence, by assiduously appealing to old-line aristocrats and wealthy members of the middle class, making them patrons and honorary members in exchange for financial support and transferred social prestige. This set Himmler's SS off from the SA and the rest of the party, whose misbehavior and ideological deviation the SS was, after all, to watch and report. Being a kind of party police both by precept and function, the raison d'etre of the SS was loyalty to the Führer. The political context of the times and the projected role of the SS, led Himmler to imbue the organization with military titles, ordered hierarchy, and combative spirit.
Both SS and SA soon experienced phenomenal growth, as the depression drove unemployed lower middle-class men and workers into the latter and middle-class intellectuals and professionals into the former. Himmler's Elite numbered 10,000 by 1931 and Pfeffer's organizational skills and training methods turned the SA into a movement in its own right by the fall of 1930, when it claimed 60,000 streetwarriors. The use of the SA as propaganda army, "a sort of permanent election campaign with terroristic methods," had much to do with the election breakthrough of the Nazi Party in the September elections to the Reichstag. But success created its own disparities and frictions which the SA-owned economic enterprises could not mitigate. Resentment of slack and corrupt party politicians, who reaped the benefits while the SA did all the work, added to impatience with Hitler's continued "legal" approach to power. It brought restlessness and buried "socialist" tendencies in the activist SA to a head.
In the summer of 1930 Pfeffer resigned in a fit of anger. Shortly before the September election, the Berlin SA revolted against the temporizing party politicians, namely Gauleiter Josef Goebbels and his SS allies, followed by a more serious SA revolt in April 1931, led by Walther Stennes, Pfeffer's erstwhile deputy. Since the rebellion was not directed at Hitler personally, he was able to quell it by a shrewd combination of concessions and charisma. During the episode the SS came into its own for the first time by protecting the politicians who were physically in danger and by keeping the SA rebels at bay with weapons drawn. Hitler, who had assumed overall command of the SA shortly after Pfeffer's resignation, decided to recall Röhm and make him chief of staff. Röhm was more than eager to resume the leadership over what was clearly an exploding organization with 260,000 members at the end of 1931 and over half a million men in January 1933.
The slower growing SS, for whom Hitler was more of a surrogate father than he was for the SA, reached a milestone with the Stennes affair. After this event Hitler gave his dependable SS the motto which was to become its most characteristic symbol until the final days of the war: "SS man your honor is loyalty!" A nearly mystical idea of loyalty expressed the core of Himmler's personality and now it was to be also the heart of the SS organization.
It was more than fortuitous that 1931 was also the year when two of Himmler's most important associates joined forces with him to create two essential SS organizational segments with their own ideological props and pervasive activities: Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich and Richard Walther Darré.
Heydrich's upbringing was both normal in the conventional sense and more privileged than Himmler's. Certainly the cultural environment was more refined, his father being the founder and director of a musical conservatory and a fairly well-known composer of operas and popular fare. The sensitive and withdrawn boy developed a certain distance from his father, being much closer to his mother, in this sense being not unlike Himmler. Unsure of himself, despite his obvious talent and intellect, he early became arrogant and cynical, jealous of his siblings greater social success. His father's running battle against rumors of his Jewish origins, a legend never successfully quashed during his lifetime, was to have its effect on Reinhard from early youth. Even though he played the violin well and dabbled with the idea of becoming a chemist, Reinhard choose the navy nearly on the spur of the moment.
His promising career in the somewhat politically suspicious service did not get very far. As a 27 year old ex-naval lieutenant, who had left the service under scandalous circumstances, Heydrich presented himself to Himmler in the fall of 1931 with plans for an SS intelligence operation. Perhaps influenced by the fact that the navy had once rejected him on physical grounds and impressed by Heydrich's quick intelligence, maybe even awed by the handsome man's reputation as chronic womanizer, Himmler gave Heydrich a virtual carte blanche. The Security Service (SD) which he created became his and Himmler's vehicle to power by acquiring exclusive intelligence prerogatives first within the SS, then within the party, and finally within the state.
Darré was quite different from Heydrich, the cynical, pragmatic realist and political tactician with few peers in the Nazi melange. Born in Argentina and educated at King's College School, Wimbledon, Darré, the ex-official in the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, had developed unusual theories about the nature of current agrarian problems. He insisted they were largely a matter "of blood," i.e., a hereditarily healthy peasantry alone could maintain the racial fecundity and cultural superiority of the Aryan stock. Five years Himmler's senior, the blood and soil ideologue took Himmler under his wing as a willing pupil when they met in the Artamanen, in which both were active during the 1920s. Before 1931 Darré had founded the party's Agrarian Political Office, converted himself into the party's agricultural expert, and then joined the SS as chief of the new SS Race Office created in December 1931. Two years later it became the Race and Settlement Office, a more appropriate designation for an agency that purveyed racism, elitism, suburban housing developments and reversion to an agrarian culture all at once.
While Himmler had adopted the prevailing culture's anti-semitism in his youth, it was Darré's agrarian racism more than Hitler's Austrian version, or the 1920 party program's anti-capitalist and anti-semitic "slavery of interest" version, which laid the basis for the racial fixation of the SS. Genetic reconstitution became the propagandistic gospel of the SS, symbolized by Himmler's notorious marriage code, suggested by Darré, a biogenetic engineer before his time, and in the view of one recent biographer the "father" of the environmentalist "Greens" in West Germany today. This code required that SS men and their prospective wives submit certified proof of Aryan ancestry and undergo minute physical examinations. Himmler, whose relationship with girls in adolescence had been stiff and distant, himself pored over photographs of SS brides in scanty apparel to make sure they met his standards of Nordic health and beauty.
Here was the origin of the so-called SS Order, which later was infused with medieval pomp and arcane ceremony, inspired by Himmler's dead heroic model, King Henry the Fowler of Saxony, conqueror of Slavs and initiator of eastward imperial expansion. Himmler was to revive this imperialism with a racist vengeance, based on the "soldier-farmer" settlement notions of Darré, which actually had their antecedents in Roman and Austro-Hungarian frontier defense policies. These anachronistic preoccupations of the SS were to find at least partial implementation in the HJ Land Service and the population policies of the National Youth Directorate.
The security functions and self-conscious elitism had a tendency to set the SS apart from the SA, illustrated by the fact that the SS had 50 percent more casualties than the SA in the street battles of 1930 to 1933. The elitist ideology, aside from its historical and racist underpinnings, its emphasis on height and presumed Aryan physical characteristics, led Himmler to be increasingly more selective in the acceptance of new recruits. His own comparative youth, his association with the Artamanen, and as a way of putting distance between his SS and the SA, Himmler insisted, particularly after January 1933, that new recruits should be under 25 years of age. This was bound to lead him eventually to view the HJ as a most significant ally.
The suppressive role of the SS, the assignment of security duties at the new party headquarters in the Brown House, and the reservation of leadership appointments to Himmler, gave the SS distinction from the party-controlled and party-financed SA. The SS, not regularly financed through the party until 1938, was dependent on its own resources. Himmler's ingenious use of the "Sponsoring Membership" mechanism, vastly extended from Berchtold's original idea, allowed the SS to become financially independent, while at the same time adumbrating its elitist image and attraction. Honorary memberships, titles and medals, were thus bestowed on thousands of "lay brothers" who contributed a fixed number of Marks per month. Wealthier members of society could afford to make such contributions more easily than poorer ones.
The proportionately large percentage of upper middle-class sponsors and the nearly negligible proportion from the working-class, had a tendency to confer old-fashioned respectability of the traditional elites to the newly proclaimed elite of the SS in the popular mind. In 1931, old-line aristocrats, who in the calculations of most sociologists no longer deserved even a separate category for purposes of structural analysis, occupied some 10 percent of the regional administrative posts in the SS. In addition to aristocrats and retired army officers, the SS was especially successful in attracting large numbers of young landowners, industrialists, professors and lawyers, the latter two being particularly prominent in Heydrich's SD.
Using the potent appeals of social and economic elitism, biological racialism, police and espionage functions, Himmler was able to attract a solid phalanx of professionals, technicians, experts, militarists, aggressive ideologists, and rationalistic bureaucrats, to whom organizational success and achievement as such mattered a great deal. Old fashioned morality and ethical standards, for most of them, seemed to be clearly overshadowed by overweening ambition to make careers for themselves and create pockets of personal power within the larger context of the SS and Hitler's approaching regime.
By January 1933 the SS with its 52,000 members was in a position to play a decisive role in the process of seizing power and encompassing a disoriented society. The HJ, with a membership twice that size, played an equally important role in "synchronizing" the youthful masses. In the course of this disruptive and murderous campaign both SS and HJ moved away from the SA, still dominant on the streets.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:09 pm
The Arizona Minutemen are made up of many armed right-wing extremist groups and are organizing again as they did around the time Tim McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 19, 1995. I remember this hugh build up of right-wing extremist propaganda on radio during this time demanding the overthrow of the U.S. government. The media concealed this connection to right wing extremist groups when covering Tim McVeigh's crimes.
QUOTE
Conservatives have successfully re-airbrushed the Oklahoma City bombing as the act of a single maniac (or two) rather than the piece of right-wing terrorism it was, derived wholly from an ideological stew of venomous hate that has simultaneously been seeping into mainstream conservatism throughout the 1990s and since.
The Patriot movement that inspired Tim McVeigh and his cohorts -- as well as a string of other would-be right-wing terrorists who were involved in some 40-odd other cases in the five years following April 15, 1995 -- indeed is descended almost directly from overtly fascist elements in American politics. Much of its political and "legal" philosophy is derived from the "Posse Comitatus" movement of the 1970s and ‘80s, which itself originated (in the 1960s) from the teachings of renowned anti-Semite William Potter Gale, and further propagated by Mike Beach, a former "Silver Shirt" follower of neo-Nazi ideologue William Dudley Pelley.21
http://www.cursor.org/stories/fascismv.php
During the Reagan Administration these groups were concentrated in the National guard and where being armed with tanks and helicopters until even the the Reagan Administration became alarmed and stopped this mobilization. Ollie North had completed drafting plans for establishing marshal law in the U.S. through FEMA. The Patriot movement that inspired Tim McVeigh and his cohorts -- as well as a string of other would-be right-wing terrorists who were involved in some 40-odd other cases in the five years following April 15, 1995 -- indeed is descended almost directly from overtly fascist elements in American politics. Much of its political and "legal" philosophy is derived from the "Posse Comitatus" movement of the 1970s and ‘80s, which itself originated (in the 1960s) from the teachings of renowned anti-Semite William Potter Gale, and further propagated by Mike Beach, a former "Silver Shirt" follower of neo-Nazi ideologue William Dudley Pelley.21
http://www.cursor.org/stories/fascismv.php
Today the mainstream media is handling this border patrol event lightly and is portraying these groups more like a "neighborhood watch" group. This is extremely dangerous for the press to fail in it's responsibility to investigate and inform the American people about the true nature of these groups and activities.
QUOTE
Group Calling Themselves "Minutemen" to Patrol Arizona Border
Volunteer border patrol group wants to fill in where federal agents are failing
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=359&id=3132
Lara Lakes Jordan
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Intent on securing the vulnerable Arizona border from illegal immigrant crossings, U.S. officials are bracing for what they call a potential new threat this spring: the Minutemen.
Nearly 500 volunteers have already joined the Minuteman Project, anointing themselves civilian border patrol agents determined to stop the immigration flow that routinely, and easily, seeps past federal authorities. They plan to patrol a 40-mile stretch of the southeast Arizona border throughout April when the tide of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border peaks.
"I felt the only way to get something done was to do it yourself," said Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and decorated Vietnam War veteran who is helping recruit Minutemen across the country.
"We've been repeatedly accused of being people who are taking the law into our own hands," said Gilchrist, 56, of Aliso Viejo, Calif. "That is an outright bogus statement. We are going down there to assist law enforcement."
Officials concede the 370-mile Arizona border is the most porous stretch on the U.S.-Mexico line. Moreover, recent intelligence show that al-Qaida terrorists are likely to enter the country through the Mexico border, James Loy, the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said last week.
"Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico, and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," Loy said in written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants caught by the U.S. Border Patrol last year, 51 percent crossed into the country at the Arizona border. The agency increased the number of agents in the Tucson sector, which has its largest staff, from 1,700 to 2,100 over the last 18 months.
But that number is going to grow to try to plug the remaining holes, said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner. About 10,000 federal agents now patrol the 2,000-mile southern border, he said.
Officials fear the Minuteman patrols could cause more trouble than they prevent. At least some of the volunteers plan to arm themselves during the 24-hour desert patrols. Many are untrained and have little or no experience in confronting illegal border crossings.
"Any time there are firearms and you're out in the middle of no-man's land in difficult terrain, it's a dangerous setting," said Bonner, whose agency is keeping a close eye on the Minutemen plans.
"The Border Patrol does this every day, and they are qualified and very well-trained to handle the situation," he said. "Ordinary Americans are not. So there's a danger that not just illegal migrants might get hurt, but that American citizens might get hurt in this situation."
Civilian patrols are nothing new along the southern border, where crossing the international line is sometimes as easy as stepping over a few rusty strands of barbed wire. But they usually are limited to small, informal groups, leaving organizers to believe the Minuteman Project is the largest of its kind on the southern border.
It may also prove to be a magnet for what Glenn Spencer, president of the private American Border Patrol, described as camouflage-wearing, weapons-toting hard-liners who might get a little carried away with their assignments.
"How are they going to keep the nutcases out of there? They can't control that," said Spencer, whose 40-volunteer group, based in Hereford, Ariz., has used unmanned aerial vehicles and other high-tech equipment to track and report the number of border crossings for more than two years.
"There's a storm gathering here on the border, and there are conditions ripe for some difficulty," he said.
The border agents agree.
The Minutemen "clearly have every reason to be upset with the federal government for abandoning them," said National Border Patrol Council president T.J. Bonner, no relation to the commissioner.
But "if anything goes wrong, God forbid, someone does injure an agent, this government is going to be turning both barrels on them and come after them with a vengeance," he said.
Gilchrist said the Minutemen are under strict orders to merely identify and follow illegal border crossers and alert federal agents. They should not interact with the immigrants except to offer food, water or medical care. If there's a couple of "bad apples" who turn up in the group, Gilchrist said, they will face prosecution if they step outside the law.
Something dramatic needed to be done to curb the years of crime, property damage and trash dumping caused by the border crossings, Gilchrist said.
"Things are out of control" said Gilchrist. "And they've been out of control for decades."
Who is Gilchrist? You would think the Associated Press, a member of the mainstream press, would make an effort to clarify this point.Volunteer border patrol group wants to fill in where federal agents are failing
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=359&id=3132
Lara Lakes Jordan
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Intent on securing the vulnerable Arizona border from illegal immigrant crossings, U.S. officials are bracing for what they call a potential new threat this spring: the Minutemen.
Nearly 500 volunteers have already joined the Minuteman Project, anointing themselves civilian border patrol agents determined to stop the immigration flow that routinely, and easily, seeps past federal authorities. They plan to patrol a 40-mile stretch of the southeast Arizona border throughout April when the tide of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border peaks.
"I felt the only way to get something done was to do it yourself," said Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and decorated Vietnam War veteran who is helping recruit Minutemen across the country.
"We've been repeatedly accused of being people who are taking the law into our own hands," said Gilchrist, 56, of Aliso Viejo, Calif. "That is an outright bogus statement. We are going down there to assist law enforcement."
Officials concede the 370-mile Arizona border is the most porous stretch on the U.S.-Mexico line. Moreover, recent intelligence show that al-Qaida terrorists are likely to enter the country through the Mexico border, James Loy, the deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said last week.
"Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico, and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," Loy said in written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants caught by the U.S. Border Patrol last year, 51 percent crossed into the country at the Arizona border. The agency increased the number of agents in the Tucson sector, which has its largest staff, from 1,700 to 2,100 over the last 18 months.
But that number is going to grow to try to plug the remaining holes, said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner. About 10,000 federal agents now patrol the 2,000-mile southern border, he said.
Officials fear the Minuteman patrols could cause more trouble than they prevent. At least some of the volunteers plan to arm themselves during the 24-hour desert patrols. Many are untrained and have little or no experience in confronting illegal border crossings.
"Any time there are firearms and you're out in the middle of no-man's land in difficult terrain, it's a dangerous setting," said Bonner, whose agency is keeping a close eye on the Minutemen plans.
"The Border Patrol does this every day, and they are qualified and very well-trained to handle the situation," he said. "Ordinary Americans are not. So there's a danger that not just illegal migrants might get hurt, but that American citizens might get hurt in this situation."
Civilian patrols are nothing new along the southern border, where crossing the international line is sometimes as easy as stepping over a few rusty strands of barbed wire. But they usually are limited to small, informal groups, leaving organizers to believe the Minuteman Project is the largest of its kind on the southern border.
It may also prove to be a magnet for what Glenn Spencer, president of the private American Border Patrol, described as camouflage-wearing, weapons-toting hard-liners who might get a little carried away with their assignments.
"How are they going to keep the nutcases out of there? They can't control that," said Spencer, whose 40-volunteer group, based in Hereford, Ariz., has used unmanned aerial vehicles and other high-tech equipment to track and report the number of border crossings for more than two years.
"There's a storm gathering here on the border, and there are conditions ripe for some difficulty," he said.
The border agents agree.
The Minutemen "clearly have every reason to be upset with the federal government for abandoning them," said National Border Patrol Council president T.J. Bonner, no relation to the commissioner.
But "if anything goes wrong, God forbid, someone does injure an agent, this government is going to be turning both barrels on them and come after them with a vengeance," he said.
Gilchrist said the Minutemen are under strict orders to merely identify and follow illegal border crossers and alert federal agents. They should not interact with the immigrants except to offer food, water or medical care. If there's a couple of "bad apples" who turn up in the group, Gilchrist said, they will face prosecution if they step outside the law.
Something dramatic needed to be done to curb the years of crime, property damage and trash dumping caused by the border crossings, Gilchrist said.
"Things are out of control" said Gilchrist. "And they've been out of control for decades."
QUOTE
NEWS MEDIA AND L.E.O:
To: Members of the Fourth Estate (media) and law enforcement organizations (LEO):
Generally, the Minuteman Project policy relative to the media and law enforcement is:
1. No restrictions.
2. Open season to all media and law enforcement.
3. Information provided "on demand".
4. Occasional "no media / no law enforcement" times are necessary for the MMP organizers to meet privately.
5. Access to the MMP Communications Center will be limited, and only with the permission of the CommMasters responsible for maintaining that center.
During the month of April, the MMProject volunteers, currently over 1,000 in number from 50 states across the nation, will converge on Cochise County, Az. under the colors of their separate state flags for the purpose of bringing national awareness to the illegal alien invasion crisis currently threatening the sovereignty, prosperity, and governance by the rule of law of the United States.
The MMProject opening presentation will be conducted in Tombstone, Az. on the afternoon of Friday, April 1, 2005 at a location to be announced. Thereafter, on dates to be announced, one-day rallies will be held in Tucson and Naco, Az. Also, a surprise rally lasting two consecutive days will be held in Douglas, Az. without notice.
Although we anticipate an attendance of at least 1,000 participants as of March 20, 2005, that number may double or triple by April 1.
Our members are well educated, mature, and seek to assemble under the rights guaranteed to them by the First Amendment of The U. S. Constitution, for the purpose of expressing their sincere disappointment in the lack of U.S. immigration law enforcement by our political leaders and their appointees. The MMProject will assemble for 30 days in peace and observe, film and report to the media, and the USBP, the chaotic conditions at the U.S. - Mexico border in southern Arizona.
The roster of volunteers currently includes 12 PhDs, three professors from state universities, several dozen current and former members of law enforcement, free-lance journalists, teachers, engineers, truck drivers, construction trade personnel, firemen, EMTs, geologists, home-makers ("MinuteMoms"), six physicians, 11 attorneys, two CPAs, janitors, college students, labor-union members, two students of divinity, aircraft pilots, three former state-level politicians, long-range reconnaissance specialists, computer scientists, taxi drivers, retired career military fromenlisted and officer ranks, and others.
The participants are comprised of various religious and ethnic roots, and include four wheel chair bound persons and seven "legal" immigrants from six countries. About one third of the participants are women. Eight per cent are of non-American-European (also referred to as "Whites") ethnicity, specifically: 18 American-Mexicans, four American-Armenians, twenty one Native American Indians (Cherokee, Comanche, Sioux, and other tribes), one American-Lebanese, one Russian, and others.
At least 100 members of the print and broadcast media will be present to witness and report these activities.
The specific intention of the MMProject is to establish passive observation outposts
throughout the San Pedro Valley. MMProject observers will identify and report to the
U.S. Border Patrol persons who have illegally trespassed United States territory.
No deliberate confrontation or detention of the illegal alien intruders is planned, or encouraged, by the MMProject. Its purpose is to be strictly a passive observer/reporter, similar to a neighborhood watch group. Any interception and detention of the illegal aliens is specifically the obligation of the U. S. Border Patrol and/or other law enforcement agencies.
The MMProject will chronicle all events relative to the reporting of illegal alien obervations and the response to calls for assistance to the U.S. Border Patrol.
These reports will be made available to all media on demand.
Respectfully Yours,
Jim Gilchrist - The Minuteman Project
The power of change through the power of peace.
http://www.minutemanproject.com/NewsMedia.html
To: Members of the Fourth Estate (media) and law enforcement organizations (LEO):
Generally, the Minuteman Project policy relative to the media and law enforcement is:
1. No restrictions.
2. Open season to all media and law enforcement.
3. Information provided "on demand".
4. Occasional "no media / no law enforcement" times are necessary for the MMP organizers to meet privately.
5. Access to the MMP Communications Center will be limited, and only with the permission of the CommMasters responsible for maintaining that center.
During the month of April, the MMProject volunteers, currently over 1,000 in number from 50 states across the nation, will converge on Cochise County, Az. under the colors of their separate state flags for the purpose of bringing national awareness to the illegal alien invasion crisis currently threatening the sovereignty, prosperity, and governance by the rule of law of the United States.
The MMProject opening presentation will be conducted in Tombstone, Az. on the afternoon of Friday, April 1, 2005 at a location to be announced. Thereafter, on dates to be announced, one-day rallies will be held in Tucson and Naco, Az. Also, a surprise rally lasting two consecutive days will be held in Douglas, Az. without notice.
Although we anticipate an attendance of at least 1,000 participants as of March 20, 2005, that number may double or triple by April 1.
Our members are well educated, mature, and seek to assemble under the rights guaranteed to them by the First Amendment of The U. S. Constitution, for the purpose of expressing their sincere disappointment in the lack of U.S. immigration law enforcement by our political leaders and their appointees. The MMProject will assemble for 30 days in peace and observe, film and report to the media, and the USBP, the chaotic conditions at the U.S. - Mexico border in southern Arizona.
The roster of volunteers currently includes 12 PhDs, three professors from state universities, several dozen current and former members of law enforcement, free-lance journalists, teachers, engineers, truck drivers, construction trade personnel, firemen, EMTs, geologists, home-makers ("MinuteMoms"), six physicians, 11 attorneys, two CPAs, janitors, college students, labor-union members, two students of divinity, aircraft pilots, three former state-level politicians, long-range reconnaissance specialists, computer scientists, taxi drivers, retired career military fromenlisted and officer ranks, and others.
The participants are comprised of various religious and ethnic roots, and include four wheel chair bound persons and seven "legal" immigrants from six countries. About one third of the participants are women. Eight per cent are of non-American-European (also referred to as "Whites") ethnicity, specifically: 18 American-Mexicans, four American-Armenians, twenty one Native American Indians (Cherokee, Comanche, Sioux, and other tribes), one American-Lebanese, one Russian, and others.
At least 100 members of the print and broadcast media will be present to witness and report these activities.
The specific intention of the MMProject is to establish passive observation outposts
throughout the San Pedro Valley. MMProject observers will identify and report to the
U.S. Border Patrol persons who have illegally trespassed United States territory.
No deliberate confrontation or detention of the illegal alien intruders is planned, or encouraged, by the MMProject. Its purpose is to be strictly a passive observer/reporter, similar to a neighborhood watch group. Any interception and detention of the illegal aliens is specifically the obligation of the U. S. Border Patrol and/or other law enforcement agencies.
The MMProject will chronicle all events relative to the reporting of illegal alien obervations and the response to calls for assistance to the U.S. Border Patrol.
These reports will be made available to all media on demand.
Respectfully Yours,
Jim Gilchrist - The Minuteman Project
The power of change through the power of peace.
http://www.minutemanproject.com/NewsMedia.html
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:14 pm
Also, notice that already some of these Minuteman leaders have had contact, in some cases actual gun battles, with regular U.S. government security forces. Our government worked with the same kind of outlaws known as the Contras so don't think that because some of the extremists are being prosecuted by the U.S. government automatically rules them out as useful allies of the U.S. government. They, in fact, fit the bill perfectly. Our government is very experienced and expert with working in tandem with these kinds of groups.
QUOTE
SANTA FE, N.M.
Former Minutemen Militia member Raymond Kodiak Sandoval was arrested on Feb. 14 in connection with two anti-environmental crimes: putting a pipe bomb in an environmental group's mailbox and setting a forest fire in June 1998 that scorched more than 5,100 acres of the Jemez Mountains and nearby Pueblo land. It took more than 800 firefighters and $3.5 million to contain the blaze. Sandoval, who reportedly started his own militia after leaving the Minutemen, could serve up to 70 years if convicted.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=17
Former Minutemen Militia member Raymond Kodiak Sandoval was arrested on Feb. 14 in connection with two anti-environmental crimes: putting a pipe bomb in an environmental group's mailbox and setting a forest fire in June 1998 that scorched more than 5,100 acres of the Jemez Mountains and nearby Pueblo land. It took more than 800 firefighters and $3.5 million to contain the blaze. Sandoval, who reportedly started his own militia after leaving the Minutemen, could serve up to 70 years if convicted.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=17
QUOTE
Anti-Immigration
Cops, neighbors fire back at Arizona's border vigilantes http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=513
Things are heating up for anti-immigrant vigilante groups near Arizona's southern border, where key figures found themselves jailed, shot and homeless this fall.
On Sept. 15, Casey Nethercott, 37, and associate Kalen Riddle, 22, were stopped by federal agents in the parking lot of a Safeway store near Douglas, Ariz. Authorities had a warrant for Nethercott's arrest based on a tense stand-off with border patrol agents two weeks prior, but the arrest did not go smoothly. Riddle was shot and critically injured while being detained, while Nethercott ended up charged with assault on a federal officer.
Nethercott, a former associate of the paramilitary anti-immigrant group Ranch Rescue, had been running an armed border militia called Arizona Guard on ranch property he owned near Douglas. He was convicted on a weapons charge in June, and also awaits retrial for allegedly pistol-whipping a Salvadoran couple in Texas in 2003 during a Ranch Rescue operation.
Nethercott had already been ordered to pay $350,000 in damages as a result of a civil suit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of the Salvadoran immigrants.
Several miles west of Douglas, another border vigilante came out on the losing end of a dispute with neighbors. American Border Patrol's Glenn Spencer, a long-time anti-immigration rabble-rouser in California, moved to the border region in August 2002, setting up operations in a columned ranch-style home in the upscale Pueblo del Sol subdivision as he built up his Web site and patrol operations in the area.
Relations with his neighbors were soured by an August 2003 incident in which a jumpy Spencer repeatedly fired a .357 rifle, hitting a neighbor's garage, after hearing what he described as "suspicious" noises in his back yard. In January 2004 Spencer pleaded guilty to a charge of endangerment, and was subsequently fined $2,500 and sentenced to a year's probation.
But it wasn't just Spencer's quick draw that irked neighbors. In Spencer's neighborhood association, the operation of a home business is prohibited. The homeowners filed a complaint, and a preliminary injunction against Spencer was granted in September.
Although Spencer maintained that most of his hate group's business was conducted from rented office space in nearby Sierra Vista, he chose not to fight the injunction and announced through his attorney that he would be leaving the property by the end of October.
Spencer says he'll relocate to 10 acres near the Mexican border, and he's been soliciting funds from supporters to put an airstrip and RV hookups on his new compound.
Cops, neighbors fire back at Arizona's border vigilantes http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=513
Things are heating up for anti-immigrant vigilante groups near Arizona's southern border, where key figures found themselves jailed, shot and homeless this fall.
On Sept. 15, Casey Nethercott, 37, and associate Kalen Riddle, 22, were stopped by federal agents in the parking lot of a Safeway store near Douglas, Ariz. Authorities had a warrant for Nethercott's arrest based on a tense stand-off with border patrol agents two weeks prior, but the arrest did not go smoothly. Riddle was shot and critically injured while being detained, while Nethercott ended up charged with assault on a federal officer.
Nethercott, a former associate of the paramilitary anti-immigrant group Ranch Rescue, had been running an armed border militia called Arizona Guard on ranch property he owned near Douglas. He was convicted on a weapons charge in June, and also awaits retrial for allegedly pistol-whipping a Salvadoran couple in Texas in 2003 during a Ranch Rescue operation.
Nethercott had already been ordered to pay $350,000 in damages as a result of a civil suit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of the Salvadoran immigrants.
Several miles west of Douglas, another border vigilante came out on the losing end of a dispute with neighbors. American Border Patrol's Glenn Spencer, a long-time anti-immigration rabble-rouser in California, moved to the border region in August 2002, setting up operations in a columned ranch-style home in the upscale Pueblo del Sol subdivision as he built up his Web site and patrol operations in the area.
Relations with his neighbors were soured by an August 2003 incident in which a jumpy Spencer repeatedly fired a .357 rifle, hitting a neighbor's garage, after hearing what he described as "suspicious" noises in his back yard. In January 2004 Spencer pleaded guilty to a charge of endangerment, and was subsequently fined $2,500 and sentenced to a year's probation.
But it wasn't just Spencer's quick draw that irked neighbors. In Spencer's neighborhood association, the operation of a home business is prohibited. The homeowners filed a complaint, and a preliminary injunction against Spencer was granted in September.
Although Spencer maintained that most of his hate group's business was conducted from rented office space in nearby Sierra Vista, he chose not to fight the injunction and announced through his attorney that he would be leaving the property by the end of October.
Spencer says he'll relocate to 10 acres near the Mexican border, and he's been soliciting funds from supporters to put an airstrip and RV hookups on his new compound.
Yet the government of George W. Bush has left wing groups well in site. No ambiguity here.
QUOTE
Congressional Quarterly HOMELAND SECURITY ' INTELLIGENCE
March 25, 2005 ' 9:43 p.m.
Animal Rights Groups and Ecology Militants Make DHS Terrorist List, Right-Wing Vigilantes Omitted
By Justin Rood, CQ Staff
http://www.cq.com/corp/show.do?page=crawford/20050325_homeland
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing domestic terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to be an internal list of threats to the nation's security.
According to the list ' part of a draft planning document obtained by CQ Homeland Security ' between now and 2011 DHS expects to contend primarily with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic radical Islamist groups.
It also lists left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist threats, but it does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements, which have staged numerous terrorist attacks that have killed scores of Americans. Recent attacks on cars, businesses and property in Virginia, Oregon and California have been attributed to ELF.
DHS did not respond to repeated requests for comment or confirmation of the document's authenticity.
The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded more than 500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was a member of the radical anti-abortion group Army of God. Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina manhunt in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.
Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998 shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.
Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in many smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus anthrax letters to abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003, for instance, a Texas man prosecutors say was a white supremacist and anti-government radical pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had discovered enough sodium cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns and several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage space he rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
'Still a Threat'
Domestic terror experts were surprised the department did not include right-wing groups on their list of adversaries.
'They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat,' said Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups. 'If for some reason the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will regret that,' said German, who left the FBI last year. 'Hopefully it's an oversight.'
James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), said in a telephone interview Friday that whereas left-wing groups, which have been more active recently, have focused mainly on the destruction of property, right-wing groups have a much deadlier and more violent record and should be on the list. 'The nature of the history of terrorism is that you will see acts in the name of [right-wing] causes in the future.'
Focusing on Left-Wing Movements
Last year, following arson and vandalism sprees on both coasts attributed to radical left-wing groups such as ALF and ELF, the FBI made those movements its top domestic terror priority. But right-wing groups remained a concern, according to one FBI official.
'That doesn't de-emphasize our interest in other domestic terror groups,' stressed the official, who would not be named discussing the bureau's counterterror strategy, during a phone interview Friday. 'For us, the right-wing patriot movement remains a continuing threat.' (The FBI considers militias, tax protesters, and anti-government groups part of the right-wing movement, the official said; the bureau considers violent anti-abortion extremists a separate movement.)
The DHS document, entitled 'Integrated Planning Guidance, Fiscal Years 2005-2011,' is dated January 2005. Its pages are marked 'Sensitive ' Do Not Distribute Outside the Department of Homeland Security ' Draft.' Each paragraph in the document is marked '(U/FOUO),' which typically indicates it has been reviewed by a government censor and determined to be unclassified, but 'for official use only.'
Under a section marked 'Threat and Vulnerability Assessment,' the document asks and answers the question 'Who are the adversaries?'
First and foremost, the draft document says, are al Qaeda and its affiliates.
Second are new radical Islamist groups that arise overseas amid the rubble of the old al Qaeda organization. These organizations 'could try to supplant' al Qaeda and 'would see a Homeland attack as a way to attain that goal,' the document states.
Domestic radical Islamic groups concern the department, because of their potential to support al Qaeda operations within the country, or to serve as a 'recruiting pool' for the movement.
'However,' the document reads, 'we are not convinced that any of these organizations acting alone would pursue a major attack against the Homeland.'
As a final item, the list notes the threat of eco-terrorists, who 'will continue to focus their attacks on property damage in an effort to change policy.' The document notes that although 'publicly ALF and ELF promote nonviolence toward human life . . . some members may escalate their attacks.'
Priorities Questioned
The document lists several groups or sources of radical violence that DHS does not consider threats to the homeland.
Lebanese Hizballah and various Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad, are unlikely to attack the United States, the report's authors conclude.
Several high-profile terror prosecutions, including cases against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and Florida professor Sami al-Arian, rest on their connection to such groups.
'Why are we expending so many resources targeting people who have allegedly provided support to groups that don't threaten us?' asked David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a frequent critic of the U.S. government's war on terror. 'How does that make us safer?'
State-sponsored terrorism also is not an immediate concern to the department, according to the document. 'In the post 9/11 environment, countries do not appear to be facilitating or supporting terrorist groups intent on striking the U.S. homeland,' it reads. In fact, of all the countries designated state sponsors of terrorism, only Iran 'appears to have the possible future motivation' to use terrorist groups to plot against the United States.
In the past few years, according to MIPT researcher Ellis, left-wing violence has overtaken right-wing violence as the primary form of domestic terror. 'When a conservative government comes to power, you see more activity from the opposite side of the spectrum,' he explained. At the same time, the membership and activity of right-wing groups has suffered since the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the broadcasting of images of the children who died in the building's second-floor day care center.
'A lot of people said, 'I'm fighting against the Zionist Occupied Government, I'm not here to kill children,' Ellis explained.
Still, Ellis warned, the movements remain worthy of the government's concern. Last October, the FBI arrested a man in Tennessee who tried to buy sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosive to attack a government building. The man, Demetrius 'Van' Crocker, had also inquired about obtaining nuclear waste or other nuclear material, according to the FBI.
And in 2003, a Pennsylvania man was convicted of mailing hundreds of letters containing fake anthrax to abortion clinics around the United States.
Although their activities appear to be decreasing, such groups are still dangerous, said Ellis. 'We don't have the luxury of ignoring threats from either side of the political spectrum.'
March 25, 2005 ' 9:43 p.m.
Animal Rights Groups and Ecology Militants Make DHS Terrorist List, Right-Wing Vigilantes Omitted
By Justin Rood, CQ Staff
http://www.cq.com/corp/show.do?page=crawford/20050325_homeland
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not list right-wing domestic terrorists and terrorist groups on a document that appears to be an internal list of threats to the nation's security.
According to the list ' part of a draft planning document obtained by CQ Homeland Security ' between now and 2011 DHS expects to contend primarily with adversaries such as al Qaeda and other foreign entities affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, as well as domestic radical Islamist groups.
It also lists left-wing domestic groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), as terrorist threats, but it does not mention anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements, which have staged numerous terrorist attacks that have killed scores of Americans. Recent attacks on cars, businesses and property in Virginia, Oregon and California have been attributed to ELF.
DHS did not respond to repeated requests for comment or confirmation of the document's authenticity.
The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded more than 500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was a member of the radical anti-abortion group Army of God. Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina manhunt in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.
Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998 shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.
Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in many smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus anthrax letters to abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003, for instance, a Texas man prosecutors say was a white supremacist and anti-government radical pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had discovered enough sodium cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns and several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage space he rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
'Still a Threat'
Domestic terror experts were surprised the department did not include right-wing groups on their list of adversaries.
'They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat,' said Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups. 'If for some reason the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will regret that,' said German, who left the FBI last year. 'Hopefully it's an oversight.'
James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), said in a telephone interview Friday that whereas left-wing groups, which have been more active recently, have focused mainly on the destruction of property, right-wing groups have a much deadlier and more violent record and should be on the list. 'The nature of the history of terrorism is that you will see acts in the name of [right-wing] causes in the future.'
Focusing on Left-Wing Movements
Last year, following arson and vandalism sprees on both coasts attributed to radical left-wing groups such as ALF and ELF, the FBI made those movements its top domestic terror priority. But right-wing groups remained a concern, according to one FBI official.
'That doesn't de-emphasize our interest in other domestic terror groups,' stressed the official, who would not be named discussing the bureau's counterterror strategy, during a phone interview Friday. 'For us, the right-wing patriot movement remains a continuing threat.' (The FBI considers militias, tax protesters, and anti-government groups part of the right-wing movement, the official said; the bureau considers violent anti-abortion extremists a separate movement.)
The DHS document, entitled 'Integrated Planning Guidance, Fiscal Years 2005-2011,' is dated January 2005. Its pages are marked 'Sensitive ' Do Not Distribute Outside the Department of Homeland Security ' Draft.' Each paragraph in the document is marked '(U/FOUO),' which typically indicates it has been reviewed by a government censor and determined to be unclassified, but 'for official use only.'
Under a section marked 'Threat and Vulnerability Assessment,' the document asks and answers the question 'Who are the adversaries?'
First and foremost, the draft document says, are al Qaeda and its affiliates.
Second are new radical Islamist groups that arise overseas amid the rubble of the old al Qaeda organization. These organizations 'could try to supplant' al Qaeda and 'would see a Homeland attack as a way to attain that goal,' the document states.
Domestic radical Islamic groups concern the department, because of their potential to support al Qaeda operations within the country, or to serve as a 'recruiting pool' for the movement.
'However,' the document reads, 'we are not convinced that any of these organizations acting alone would pursue a major attack against the Homeland.'
As a final item, the list notes the threat of eco-terrorists, who 'will continue to focus their attacks on property damage in an effort to change policy.' The document notes that although 'publicly ALF and ELF promote nonviolence toward human life . . . some members may escalate their attacks.'
Priorities Questioned
The document lists several groups or sources of radical violence that DHS does not consider threats to the homeland.
Lebanese Hizballah and various Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad, are unlikely to attack the United States, the report's authors conclude.
Several high-profile terror prosecutions, including cases against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation and Florida professor Sami al-Arian, rest on their connection to such groups.
'Why are we expending so many resources targeting people who have allegedly provided support to groups that don't threaten us?' asked David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a frequent critic of the U.S. government's war on terror. 'How does that make us safer?'
State-sponsored terrorism also is not an immediate concern to the department, according to the document. 'In the post 9/11 environment, countries do not appear to be facilitating or supporting terrorist groups intent on striking the U.S. homeland,' it reads. In fact, of all the countries designated state sponsors of terrorism, only Iran 'appears to have the possible future motivation' to use terrorist groups to plot against the United States.
In the past few years, according to MIPT researcher Ellis, left-wing violence has overtaken right-wing violence as the primary form of domestic terror. 'When a conservative government comes to power, you see more activity from the opposite side of the spectrum,' he explained. At the same time, the membership and activity of right-wing groups has suffered since the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and the broadcasting of images of the children who died in the building's second-floor day care center.
'A lot of people said, 'I'm fighting against the Zionist Occupied Government, I'm not here to kill children,' Ellis explained.
Still, Ellis warned, the movements remain worthy of the government's concern. Last October, the FBI arrested a man in Tennessee who tried to buy sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosive to attack a government building. The man, Demetrius 'Van' Crocker, had also inquired about obtaining nuclear waste or other nuclear material, according to the FBI.
And in 2003, a Pennsylvania man was convicted of mailing hundreds of letters containing fake anthrax to abortion clinics around the United States.
Although their activities appear to be decreasing, such groups are still dangerous, said Ellis. 'We don't have the luxury of ignoring threats from either side of the political spectrum.'
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:16 pm
The same phenomena is easier to observe in Iraq because there is less need to disguise their designed purpose. Private armies (these para-military groups gain public acceptence if called "Private Security Services" corporations like Blackwater Inc.) are being formed and are gaining hands on experience in Iraq. These same personnel will eventually return to the United States looking for work. I wonder what kind of work? Notice it is not our government, but "Human Rights" groups and the foreign press that are protesting this para-military group.
Our American press and opposition politicians are totally apathetic, unaware, and oblivious to these domestic political trends.
QUOTE
Fury at 'shoot for fun' memo
Outburst by US security firm in Iraq is attacked by human rights groups
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451137,00.html
Mark Townsend
Sunday April 3, 2005
The Observer
One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage after a memo to staff claimed it is 'fun' to shoot people.
Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater Security were recently sent a message stating that 'actually it is "fun" to shoot some people.'
Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists 'need to get creamed, and it's fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such folk.'
Human rights groups said yesterday that the comments raised fresh questions over the role of civilian contractors operating in Iraq and other world flashpoints.
'We are very concerned about the increased use of security companies, there needs to be more inspection and regulation of these companies,' said a spokesman for Amnesty International.
Blackwater has already been the subject of lobbying efforts to introduce tighter regulations on private military operations in Iraq.
It is one of the fastest growing private security firms in the world, and achieved global prominence last year when four of its men were ambushed by a crowd of Iraqis and their bodies mutilated and dragged around the Iraqi city of Falluja.
The controversial wording of the Blackwater bulletin appears to be an attempt to criticise the 'righteous outcry' that followed a recent statement from a senior US Marine general who, on returning home from Iraq, claimed it was 'fun to shoot some people'. While the views of Lieutenant-General James Mattis drew a frosty response from the Pentagon, others said his observations reflected the harsh realities of war.
Blackwater's entry to the debate appears to suggest that satisfaction can be drawn from combat if 'the bad guys' get what they deserve.
'All of us who have ever waited through an hour and a half movie, or read some 300 pages of a thriller, to the point when the bad guys finally get their comeuppance know this perfectly well,' says the opening address of the six-page bulletin, which The Observer believes to be authentic.
Called Blackwater Tactical Weekly, the newsletter was sent to environmental activist Frank Hewetson as well as the firm's staff. Last year Hewetson was offered a job by Blackwater with a salary of up to �85,000 plus health benefits to work with its 'military crisis operations support team.' Although he declined, Hewetson remains on the firm's database.
The 7 March bulletin also features a plug for Blackwater's training academy which offers potential recruits an eight-week course that includes training in various firearms, close quarter protection, physical security as well as 'ground fighting.'
Among its various roles in post-war Iraq, Blackwater has guarded provincial outposts for the Iraqi coalition provisional authority and had the contract to keep former chief US envoy Paul Bremer alive.
The company has been praised for its role in the rescue of a wounded soldier in Najaf. Defence experts have described Blackwater as a major player in the field of private arms with an important role to play in aiding American security in the war on terror.
Other Blackwater emails seen by The Observer, from last year, indicate the large market for civilian contractors in war zones. 'We will probably require at least 3000-4000 professionals above and beyond what we have in the Blackwater employment and resource system,' states one.
There are thought to be as many as 20,000 private enterprise soldiers in Iraq, with the US military an advocate of their use. This system allows governments to save money on paying permanent soldiers, and offers the political bonus that it is unlikely to attract as much media attention as conventional troops.
The Observer made numerous attempts to contact Blackwater's head office in North Carolina, but no calls were returned. There is, however, no evidence that company staff have ever shot people for fun.
The firm is understood to have disciplined and well-trained recruits. A number are thought to be elite soldiers who have retired from military special-operations units. Blackwater also offers extensive psychological counselling programmes to combat potentially traumatic battlefield stress.
Outburst by US security firm in Iraq is attacked by human rights groups
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451137,00.html
Mark Townsend
Sunday April 3, 2005
The Observer
One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage after a memo to staff claimed it is 'fun' to shoot people.
Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater Security were recently sent a message stating that 'actually it is "fun" to shoot some people.'
Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists 'need to get creamed, and it's fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such folk.'
Human rights groups said yesterday that the comments raised fresh questions over the role of civilian contractors operating in Iraq and other world flashpoints.
'We are very concerned about the increased use of security companies, there needs to be more inspection and regulation of these companies,' said a spokesman for Amnesty International.
Blackwater has already been the subject of lobbying efforts to introduce tighter regulations on private military operations in Iraq.
It is one of the fastest growing private security firms in the world, and achieved global prominence last year when four of its men were ambushed by a crowd of Iraqis and their bodies mutilated and dragged around the Iraqi city of Falluja.
The controversial wording of the Blackwater bulletin appears to be an attempt to criticise the 'righteous outcry' that followed a recent statement from a senior US Marine general who, on returning home from Iraq, claimed it was 'fun to shoot some people'. While the views of Lieutenant-General James Mattis drew a frosty response from the Pentagon, others said his observations reflected the harsh realities of war.
Blackwater's entry to the debate appears to suggest that satisfaction can be drawn from combat if 'the bad guys' get what they deserve.
'All of us who have ever waited through an hour and a half movie, or read some 300 pages of a thriller, to the point when the bad guys finally get their comeuppance know this perfectly well,' says the opening address of the six-page bulletin, which The Observer believes to be authentic.
Called Blackwater Tactical Weekly, the newsletter was sent to environmental activist Frank Hewetson as well as the firm's staff. Last year Hewetson was offered a job by Blackwater with a salary of up to �85,000 plus health benefits to work with its 'military crisis operations support team.' Although he declined, Hewetson remains on the firm's database.
The 7 March bulletin also features a plug for Blackwater's training academy which offers potential recruits an eight-week course that includes training in various firearms, close quarter protection, physical security as well as 'ground fighting.'
Among its various roles in post-war Iraq, Blackwater has guarded provincial outposts for the Iraqi coalition provisional authority and had the contract to keep former chief US envoy Paul Bremer alive.
The company has been praised for its role in the rescue of a wounded soldier in Najaf. Defence experts have described Blackwater as a major player in the field of private arms with an important role to play in aiding American security in the war on terror.
Other Blackwater emails seen by The Observer, from last year, indicate the large market for civilian contractors in war zones. 'We will probably require at least 3000-4000 professionals above and beyond what we have in the Blackwater employment and resource system,' states one.
There are thought to be as many as 20,000 private enterprise soldiers in Iraq, with the US military an advocate of their use. This system allows governments to save money on paying permanent soldiers, and offers the political bonus that it is unlikely to attract as much media attention as conventional troops.
The Observer made numerous attempts to contact Blackwater's head office in North Carolina, but no calls were returned. There is, however, no evidence that company staff have ever shot people for fun.
The firm is understood to have disciplined and well-trained recruits. A number are thought to be elite soldiers who have retired from military special-operations units. Blackwater also offers extensive psychological counselling programmes to combat potentially traumatic battlefield stress.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:17 pm
Chris Simcox
QUOTE
Abusive acts vs. entrants are ignored, activists say.
Officials say case impossible without crossers' testimony
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/67826.php
The stories of illegal entrants abused by Cochise County vigilantes are buried in sheriff's deputy reports - complaints of guns drawn, dog bites, shouts and humiliation - in official language, using terms such as aggravated assault and disorderly conduct.
Since 1999, the Mexican consul in Douglas, Miguel Escobar, has documented 65 cases in which illegal border crossers reported being detained by U.S. citizens in Cochise County.
In at least six reports taken by Cochise County Sheriff's Department deputies, illegal entrants have reported being kicked, shouted at, bitten by dogs and had guns pointed at them - yet there's never been a single Cochise County resident prosecuted in these cases.
Human-rights activists say it's because there's a culture of looking the other way when it comes to illegal-entrant abuse. Cochise County law enforcement officials say it's because the victims - illegal entrants - choose not to pursue charges. And without witnesses, there are no cases.
The debate has led to civil lawsuits involving millions of dollars. And it has fueled concerns by activists that lax enforcement will allow participants in the upcoming Minuteman Project to abuse illegal entrants without fear of prosecution in Cochise County.
The Minuteman Project is being touted now as a "political assembly" promising to bring 1,022 people to the banks of the San Pedro River for a monthlong protest of border enforcement, starting Friday. But activist groups point to elements within the group and cite a potential for violence.
Last year, one of its leaders, Chris Simcox, was convicted on federal weapons charges. More recently, the white supremacy group Aryan Nation has openly recruited for the Minuteman Project, promoting the monthlong protest as a "white pride event."
Organizer James Gilchrist said he didn't know the Aryan Nation was promoting the event.
"That's a concern to us. Who knows what the group is capable of?" said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network. The activist group plans this week to file an international human-rights complaint against the United States in the Organization of American States, contending it is failing to prosecute vigilantes.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said there's no point in pouring resources into prosecuting a case when the victims won't stay to testify.
"We were aware of the ramifications when this started," Dever said. "We wanted to make sure it was viable when it comes."
In the latest court action, a $32 million civil suit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Tucson against Dever and the most active armed rancher, Cochise County resident Roger Barnett, by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The suit also targets Barnett's brother and wife and 10 other unnamed individuals.
The group of illegal entrants told sheriff's deputies that Barnett kicked one woman twice in March 2004. The whole time, he shouted obscenities at the illegal entrants he'd apprehended on his property and pointed his weapon at them while they were on his land, the entrants said.
Last week, the Cochise County Attorney's Office dropped prosecution in the case because it's not illegal to point a gun at a trespasser in Arizona and because after interviewing some of the alleged victims, investigators were unable to determine whether Barnett kicked the woman or motioned to her with his foot, said Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer.
The case mirrors other complaints against Barnett, who has never been prosecuted or arrested despite his own claims of detaining thousands of migrants on his ranch east of Douglas.
In a June 2004 case, deputies arrived at the Douglas Border Patrol station in response to an aggravated-assault report. Barnett had called the Border Patrol to report seven people he had picked up. One of the men with him grabbed a women in the group of entrants by the hair, pushed a gun into her ribs, forced her onto his all-terrain vehicle and drove her to the highway, a sheriff's report stated. A man in the group complained to deputies the man's dog had bitten him on the thigh.
The case was dismissed when each of the illegal entrants declined to pursue charges and would not testify.
That won't be an issue in a civil lawsuit, because the standards for proving assault in civil court are different from those in criminal court, said Araceli Perez, a staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The organization hopes to use the lawsuit to force Cochise County to prosecute cases against vigilantes, she said.
"Our clients believe they didn't go far enough to protect citizens," she said. That may be exacerbated with the Minuteman Project, she said. "There is a concern that you will have more violations because they won't prosecute these cases. That's when you're led to potential civil-rights violations."
Barnett, the first rancher to openly acknowledge he apprehends illegal entrants while armed, has served as the model for groups such as the Minuteman Project and the American Border Patrol, activists say.
U.S. Border Patrol spokes-man Jose Garza said his agency routinely calls law enforcement when U.S. citizens are in the presence of the illegal entrants they apprehend, but the agency doesn't track the encounters itself. In the future, the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector plans to carefully track every encounter between Minuteman volunteers and illegal entrants in case of future legal repercussions, he said.
In the March 2004 case, a county prosecutor investigated and concluded that there was no physical injury to the woman and Barnett may not have kicked her but rather motioned to her with his foot because she was separated from the group, Rheinheimer said.
The illegal entrants may feel threatened and scared, but "with the people who live on the border and who have had confrontations with groups of illegal immigrants coming across their land . . . there is just no question that there is a justification in threatening to use deadly force for the purpose of calling Border Patrol," Rheinheimer said. "Threatening (force) isn't using, a delicate but important distinction," he said.
"We get heat from both sides on this," Rheinheimer added.
Regarding the Minuteman Project, the Cochise county attorney said: "I would hope that the people who do come down here know exactly where the boundaries are."
One case he won't speak about, because it's still under investigation, is an October 2004 incident in which Barnett is accused of chambering a round and pointing his AR-15 at a group of two men and three children, all U.S. citizens, who were hunting on land Barnett leases from the state.
Barnett was cited by deputies on eight felony counts of aggravated assault. The group members said Barnett screamed at them, chambered a round and ordered them off "his" land while the children cowered on the floorboard of the truck they'd rode in on, the deputy's report states.
Five months later, prosecutors are still reviewing the case.
"How long does it take them to review this?" said Ed English, the father of one of the children.
The man at the center of the controversy, Barnett, knows he walks a narrow line but says he stays comfortably within the law. When law enforcement is nowhere around, "it's the law that protects you. As far as I'm concerned, this is just a harassment tactic," Barnett said of the lawsuits. "I've got a right to do whatever I have to do."
Officials say case impossible without crossers' testimony
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/67826.php
The stories of illegal entrants abused by Cochise County vigilantes are buried in sheriff's deputy reports - complaints of guns drawn, dog bites, shouts and humiliation - in official language, using terms such as aggravated assault and disorderly conduct.
Since 1999, the Mexican consul in Douglas, Miguel Escobar, has documented 65 cases in which illegal border crossers reported being detained by U.S. citizens in Cochise County.
In at least six reports taken by Cochise County Sheriff's Department deputies, illegal entrants have reported being kicked, shouted at, bitten by dogs and had guns pointed at them - yet there's never been a single Cochise County resident prosecuted in these cases.
Human-rights activists say it's because there's a culture of looking the other way when it comes to illegal-entrant abuse. Cochise County law enforcement officials say it's because the victims - illegal entrants - choose not to pursue charges. And without witnesses, there are no cases.
The debate has led to civil lawsuits involving millions of dollars. And it has fueled concerns by activists that lax enforcement will allow participants in the upcoming Minuteman Project to abuse illegal entrants without fear of prosecution in Cochise County.
The Minuteman Project is being touted now as a "political assembly" promising to bring 1,022 people to the banks of the San Pedro River for a monthlong protest of border enforcement, starting Friday. But activist groups point to elements within the group and cite a potential for violence.
Last year, one of its leaders, Chris Simcox, was convicted on federal weapons charges. More recently, the white supremacy group Aryan Nation has openly recruited for the Minuteman Project, promoting the monthlong protest as a "white pride event."
Organizer James Gilchrist said he didn't know the Aryan Nation was promoting the event.
"That's a concern to us. Who knows what the group is capable of?" said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network. The activist group plans this week to file an international human-rights complaint against the United States in the Organization of American States, contending it is failing to prosecute vigilantes.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said there's no point in pouring resources into prosecuting a case when the victims won't stay to testify.
"We were aware of the ramifications when this started," Dever said. "We wanted to make sure it was viable when it comes."
In the latest court action, a $32 million civil suit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Tucson against Dever and the most active armed rancher, Cochise County resident Roger Barnett, by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The suit also targets Barnett's brother and wife and 10 other unnamed individuals.
The group of illegal entrants told sheriff's deputies that Barnett kicked one woman twice in March 2004. The whole time, he shouted obscenities at the illegal entrants he'd apprehended on his property and pointed his weapon at them while they were on his land, the entrants said.
Last week, the Cochise County Attorney's Office dropped prosecution in the case because it's not illegal to point a gun at a trespasser in Arizona and because after interviewing some of the alleged victims, investigators were unable to determine whether Barnett kicked the woman or motioned to her with his foot, said Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer.
The case mirrors other complaints against Barnett, who has never been prosecuted or arrested despite his own claims of detaining thousands of migrants on his ranch east of Douglas.
In a June 2004 case, deputies arrived at the Douglas Border Patrol station in response to an aggravated-assault report. Barnett had called the Border Patrol to report seven people he had picked up. One of the men with him grabbed a women in the group of entrants by the hair, pushed a gun into her ribs, forced her onto his all-terrain vehicle and drove her to the highway, a sheriff's report stated. A man in the group complained to deputies the man's dog had bitten him on the thigh.
The case was dismissed when each of the illegal entrants declined to pursue charges and would not testify.
That won't be an issue in a civil lawsuit, because the standards for proving assault in civil court are different from those in criminal court, said Araceli Perez, a staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The organization hopes to use the lawsuit to force Cochise County to prosecute cases against vigilantes, she said.
"Our clients believe they didn't go far enough to protect citizens," she said. That may be exacerbated with the Minuteman Project, she said. "There is a concern that you will have more violations because they won't prosecute these cases. That's when you're led to potential civil-rights violations."
Barnett, the first rancher to openly acknowledge he apprehends illegal entrants while armed, has served as the model for groups such as the Minuteman Project and the American Border Patrol, activists say.
U.S. Border Patrol spokes-man Jose Garza said his agency routinely calls law enforcement when U.S. citizens are in the presence of the illegal entrants they apprehend, but the agency doesn't track the encounters itself. In the future, the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector plans to carefully track every encounter between Minuteman volunteers and illegal entrants in case of future legal repercussions, he said.
In the March 2004 case, a county prosecutor investigated and concluded that there was no physical injury to the woman and Barnett may not have kicked her but rather motioned to her with his foot because she was separated from the group, Rheinheimer said.
The illegal entrants may feel threatened and scared, but "with the people who live on the border and who have had confrontations with groups of illegal immigrants coming across their land . . . there is just no question that there is a justification in threatening to use deadly force for the purpose of calling Border Patrol," Rheinheimer said. "Threatening (force) isn't using, a delicate but important distinction," he said.
"We get heat from both sides on this," Rheinheimer added.
Regarding the Minuteman Project, the Cochise county attorney said: "I would hope that the people who do come down here know exactly where the boundaries are."
One case he won't speak about, because it's still under investigation, is an October 2004 incident in which Barnett is accused of chambering a round and pointing his AR-15 at a group of two men and three children, all U.S. citizens, who were hunting on land Barnett leases from the state.
Barnett was cited by deputies on eight felony counts of aggravated assault. The group members said Barnett screamed at them, chambered a round and ordered them off "his" land while the children cowered on the floorboard of the truck they'd rode in on, the deputy's report states.
Five months later, prosecutors are still reviewing the case.
"How long does it take them to review this?" said Ed English, the father of one of the children.
The man at the center of the controversy, Barnett, knows he walks a narrow line but says he stays comfortably within the law. When law enforcement is nowhere around, "it's the law that protects you. As far as I'm concerned, this is just a harassment tactic," Barnett said of the lawsuits. "I've got a right to do whatever I have to do."
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:25 pm
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/09/spotlight/ was shot in the pelvis and was left to lie in the no-man's land between East and West Germany for nearly an hour as he bled to death. His screams of pain, left unanswered, horrified onlookers. Fechter's fate symbolized for many the cruelty created by the Berlin Wall. http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/history/escape.htm http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/august02-02/border.htm
See http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0311/feature1/online_extra.html.
UPDATE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant_deaths_along_the_U.S.-Mexico_border And in another source, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/02/EDG5TG18EB1.DTL for a total of 3376 deaths between 1994 to 2005.
QUOTE...Since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed by the first Bush and the now reviled Carlos Salinas in 1992, over 4000 Mexican workers, many of them campesinos displaced from the land by NAFTA agricultural imports, have died trying to cross that line to find a job no North American citizen will work. They have drowned in the All-American Canal and the river that Mexico calls the Rio Bravo and the U.S. the Rio Grande. They have been bitten by vipers running through south Texas, suffocated to death in boxcars, died in car crashes after high speed chases or simply been shot down by the Migra and their volunteer vigilantes. They have fallen into ravines or froze to death in the winter snow up in the Rumarosa, the most dangerous part of the border to which it is U.S. immigration policy to chase them in a strategy to "up the risks" of migration. And mostly they have dropped out there in the cruel desert never to rise again as the vultures circle slowly in the spotless heavens above. http://www.counterpunch.org/ross04072005.htmlCommunist and Capitalist Refugees
During the 1960s the American government propaganda machine used the Berlin Wall as the symbol of the evils of communism. The East Germans were walled in and were constantly trying to escape a totalitarian communist society. This was evidence, the U.S. said, of a failed society—people risking their lives and dying while attempting to escape poverty and repression. This fact was also justification for the violent overthrown of such an evil government and billions of tax dollars were spend by Americans to undermined Soviet communism and pressure these dictatorships to change their political system. The United States spared no effort, expense, and even lives battling such an evil society.
Yet the United States is next doors to one of the poorest and repressive countries in North America—Mexico. For decades Mexicans have fled Mexico because of poverty, and repression looking for a better life in America. The American government, California in particular, has spent billions if not trillions of dollars over decades receiving Mexican refugees. Mexico is a proto-Fascist county on our very doorstep! Thousands of Mexicans have been killed fleeing Mexico and crossing the American border. But somehow this history fact doesn’t elicit the same concern for human rights by America. The American government has the power and resources to seal the Mexican/American border. But more importantly, the United States has the power to influence the Mexican government to change its governmental policies that is causing a massive exodus of Mexican refugees.
The United States did attempted to build a triple fence to block immigration, but this looks more like a symbolic jester and a pork barrel spending project.QUOTE“The triple fence, which began with the hare-brained allocation of $4.3 million a decade ago for a single mile of it, is now becoming a 14-mile-long scar along the border costing upward of $25 million, depending on how much is needed to offset the loss of rare wildlife habitat. Opposed as waste by the Clinton administration, Hunter pushed it through as San Diego pork, though immigration experts have always doubted its value.
Its effect, they said, would be to push illegal immigrants farther east, where there is no fence.
Which is precisely what happened.
In 1994, Operation Gatekeeper, an attempt to prevent illegal immigration along the entire Southwest border, became law. Gatekeeper led to construction of the single fence between San Ysidro and Otay, a doubling of border agents, new equipment such as vehicles and border lighting, and stiffer prosecution and repatriation provisions aimed at illegal crossers.
Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD, has compiled statistics on Gatekeeper based on Border Patrol apprehensions, a useful measure of illegal crossing attempts. The numbers show that in the decade between 1994 and last year, border apprehensions fell scarcely at all, from 979,101 in 1994 to 905,065 last year.
At Gatekeeper's estimated cost of between $500 million and $1 billion, border apprehensions have fallen 7 percent along the Southwest border – hardly cost-effective policy.
So how did those 10 million illegal immigrants get here?
The statistics tell us. The border fence pushed illegal immigrants from the San Diego sector eastward, into the deserts. Apprehensions in Arizona climbed from 160,000 in 1994 to 376,000 last year, even as Texas apprehensions rose slightly and California apprehensions were cut in half. During the same period, the number of Mexicans who died trying to cross the border, mostly in the deserts and mountains, rose to more than 2,400.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0219-02.htm”
The United States government deliberately is allowing massive immigration into the United States to keep wages depressed and exploit Mexican and American labor. Also, the United States is comfortable with a proto-fascist government like Mexico in which American corporations have profitable economic agreements and a un-regulation business environment.
Government Censorship of Arizona Minutemen coverage
Since the Arizona Minutemen announced the “Minuteman Project” to send 500 to 1500 armed “citizen volunteers” to the Arizona-Mexican border, the mainstream media has covered the event as a “citizen neighborhood watch program.” The media coverage has very carefully tipped toed around these very oblivious issues of why there are such a massive number of economic refugees fleeing Mexico. The mainstream media avoids giving historical context, or provide any interviews with the powerful government office leaders that are supposed to be responsible for immigration.
We instead get 30-second reports of border patrols and extremely ambiguous reports of what the U.S. government is doing in response to Minuteman project. For, example, the U. S. government announced that is sending an additional border patrol agents to the Mexican/American border.QUOTE“The minutemen say one goal is to draw attention to the underfunding of the Border Patrol. But officials counter they don't need the help: Last week, the agency's Tucson sector announced a 25 percent increase in staffing in Arizona, which includes 155 permanent personnel and 200 temporary. Twenty-three new aircraft are surveying the area as well.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0404/p01s03-usgn.html
But, is this increase of government agents now a de facto joint exercise between U.S. government agents and para-military groups? I have seen the picture of Chris Simcox interviewed at least three times on TV media, but not once did the report mention that Simcox was convicted in April 2004 for carrying a concealed weapon on federal land while engaged in a vigilante patrol and giving false information to a park ranger( http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/cause_for_concern_2004/ch2.html ). Also, the mainstream media does not mention that the project has been infiltrated by white supremacists organizations ( http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/18588.php).
There are many other persons of interest involved in this project, but no in-depth investigation is forthcoming. Where is the competition between news organizations to get the news story first? The mainstream media is just as regulated and censored as any of the media in Communist Russia. The only the audience is different.
Where is Bush when a country like Mexico is demanding Liberty and Democracy?
Didn't America protest the communist East Germany for its tyrannical government and failed economic system causing refugees to flee to the West?
Would a Democratic country in place of a fascist Mexican government help solve our immigration problems?
Here is a chance for the American government to make a small effort to fix our immigration problem, yet, http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9506 It is as if BushCo likes it this way: desperate people fleeing to America to flood the economy with desperate illegal workers and protect the power of the fascist undemocratic government of Mexico.
Thousands of followers [more than a million] of Mexico City's left wing Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador fill the capital's Zocalo, or main square, April 24, 2005, during a rally to protest against his impeachment and pending prosecution for contempt of court. Protesters crammed into Mexico City's vast central square and narrow streets in the historic downtown, many waving banners condemning the legal case against Lopez Obrador.
See article http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0425-04.htm
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:33 pm
The first phase of Fascism is the rise of para-military groups, a thug class, to help out the government against a common enemy.
The second phase of Fascism is the government to legitimize these ultra-right-wing para-military groups. Schwarzenegger has attempted to do that today.
Chris Simcox, see post above, has already gone to congress to give an "ultimatium" to the government. Read this article from "The Ohio State University's Program for International and Homeland Security" Webpage!!!! There is nothing I could find on the internet actually covering Simcox's testimony in Washington last April 25-27, 2005.[My comment added in brackets]
QUOTE
"If there are bureaucratic obstacles to enforcing the law, I want to get rid of those," Chertoff added. [Yes, that is our Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and he is not condeming the Minutemen!]
Meanwhile, the Minutemen organizers are coming to Washington April 25-27 to meet with members of Congress. Organizer Chris Simcox said the group will present an "ultimatum."
"We will continue to do the job that you don't seem to have the will to do until you relieve us from duty by meeting our demands," Simcox said during a press conference Monday in Tombstone, Ariz. "And that's augmenting Border Patrol with National Guard and military personnel. Until that time, citizens will continue to man the border. No compromise."
He added: "Our government owes us the protection of securing this border. Period."
The Minuteman Project plans to continue operations on two fronts. First, the group will begin "interior patrols" that consist of picketing employers that hire illegal aliens. Beginning Oct. 1, the group plans to set up citizen observation posts in California, New Mexico and Texas. The Arizona observation posts are scheduled to resume in May after a brief hiatus.
The group also wants a 400 percent increase in budgets for the Border Patrol and ICE. http://homelandsecurity.osu.edu/focusareas/border.html
Meanwhile, the Minutemen organizers are coming to Washington April 25-27 to meet with members of Congress. Organizer Chris Simcox said the group will present an "ultimatum."
"We will continue to do the job that you don't seem to have the will to do until you relieve us from duty by meeting our demands," Simcox said during a press conference Monday in Tombstone, Ariz. "And that's augmenting Border Patrol with National Guard and military personnel. Until that time, citizens will continue to man the border. No compromise."
He added: "Our government owes us the protection of securing this border. Period."
The Minuteman Project plans to continue operations on two fronts. First, the group will begin "interior patrols" that consist of picketing employers that hire illegal aliens. Beginning Oct. 1, the group plans to set up citizen observation posts in California, New Mexico and Texas. The Arizona observation posts are scheduled to resume in May after a brief hiatus.
The group also wants a 400 percent increase in budgets for the Border Patrol and ICE. http://homelandsecurity.osu.edu/focusareas/border.html
QUOTE
Governor endorses Minutemen on border
Schwarzenegger parts with Bush on group of armed volunteers that stops immigrants.
Carla Marinucci and Mark Martin, Chronicle Political Writers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/29/GUV.TMP
Friday, April 29, 2005
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, just a week after apologizing for suggesting California should "close the borders,'' warmly praised the Minutemen project -- an armed citizens group -- on Thursday for doing a terrific job of stopping illegal immigration from Mexico.
Although President Bush has criticized the group as vigilantes, Schwarzenegger said, "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage.''
Schwarzenegger, appearing on the conservative Los Angeles KFI radio's "John and Ken'' talk show, was asked his views of the Minutemen, who are using armed volunteers along the border in Arizona. The governor endorsed the effort, saying, "It just shows that it works.''
"Our federal government is not doing their job," Schwarzenegger said. "It's a shame that the private citizen has to go in there and start patrolling our borders."
Schwarzenegger's comments drew a rebuke from Latino politicians, as had those last week, and put the governor in a public disagreement with Bush. The president and the U.S. Border Patrol have criticized the Minutemen as interfering with law enforcement, and posing a danger to citizens and immigrants aiming to cross the border illegally.
Members of the Minutemen were delighted at Schwarzenegger's comments, noting he was the first governor to support them.
"Gov. Schwarzenegger is the most responsible politician in the West,'' said Grey Deacon, speaking Thursday from the group's headquarters in Tombstone, Ariz. "He is willing to stand up for what is correct in America.''
Deacon called Schwarzenegger's comments very courageous, noting that as a legal immigrant to the country, the governor "understands immigration policy better than most citizens.''
Deacon said the group planned to extend its effort to California by Oct. 1 and hoped the governor would welcome them.
Rob Stutzman, communications director with the governor, said Schwarzenegger had not been in contact with the group and had no current plans to contact them.
Schwarzenegger does not support illegal activity, Stutzman said, and he was merely "praising acts with citizens that are working diligently to solve a problem that their government is not solving.''
But California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the Republican governor should be urging the Republican president to put more federal agents on the border rather than endorsing the efforts of untrained volunteers.
Schwarzenegger, who more than 25 years ago immigrated to the United States as an aspiring bodybuilder from Austria, last week kicked off a controversy when he told newspaper publishers in San Francisco that California needed to close the borders to control illegal immigration. After he was severely criticized, the governor apologized and said he meant government needed to do more to secure the borders.
Schwarzenegger, in Thursday's 20-minute interview, was critical of what he characterized as the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration. He said he was deeply concerned watching recent Fox News videos showing "hundreds and hundreds of illegal immigrants coming across the border. I mean, what's that?''
Federal officials "owe it to the people to secure the borders ... they're not doing their job. They're leaving it way open, anyone can walk across,'' he said. "It's not just the problem of immigrants. It's also a problem that any terrorists can come in."
Asked what he would do to secure the border, the governor offered, "The most important thing is what they're doing with the Minutemen now ... have more people controlling it.''
But Schwarzenegger appeared stumped when he was asked why Bush had criticized the armed citizens as vigilantes.
"I really cannot tell you exactly what his thinking is," Schwarzenegger said of the president. "The next time I see him, I will have this conversation.''
Prominent Latinos and legislators immediately assailed the governor's statements as alarming.
"It is illegal to interfere with law enforcement, and if the governor is promoting that, then maybe we should think of bringing action against him,'' said Art Torres, state Democratic Party chairman. "When he took an oath of office to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States, that includes all of its laws. And when the president of the United States and the Border Patrol both suggest that these activities are not only not helpful, but possibly illegal, that needs to be seriously examined.'''
Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-Southgate (Los Angeles County), lambasted the governor's words as "the rantings of a desperate politician'' and an effort "to scapegoat people when you're down.''
"This isn't an action movie," De La Torre said. "It isn't cool that there are people out in the desert with guns.''
Political analysts said that with the governor's poll numbers dropping and his reform agenda stalled, the governor's comments on a conservative radio talk show about illegal immigration signaled a willingness to reprise the strategy of former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who hammered at the issue and fired up the GOP base in his 1994 successful bid for re-election.
But they called the move puzzling -- and politically risky at best.
"What happened to redistricting?'' said Barbara O'Connor, political communication professor at California State University Sacramento, referring to the governor's main political goal in the past weeks. "He's clearly not focused his message, and he's doing serial attacks on things he's unhappy with.''
"It's very odd that the governor would move in this direction,'' added Phil Trounstine, who now heads the San Jose State University Survey and Policy Research Institute.
As public support drops, "there's two ways the governor could go: One is to take a hard line and dig in on the conservative side. The other is to play a more centrist, bipartisan role,'' said Trounstine, who was a communications adviser to former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. "If the radio show is any indication, the governor has decided for the former, not the latter.''
Stutzman said the governor had intended to discuss his dismay with advertising for Spanish-language Channel 62, which has been prominently placed on major Los Angeles freeways.
The ads, which had riled some anti-illegal immigration advocates, shows a panorama of the Los Angeles skyline dominated by Mexico City's most prominent landmark -- the famed golden angel. The headline says: "Your news, your team. Los Angeles, CA.'' But California is crossed out and replaced with "Mexico.''
Schwarzenegger called on the station to pull the ads, calling them "extremely divisive and unnecessary. The big mistake is that it promotes illegal aliens to come in here, and it's the last thing that we need,'' he told the KFI-AM hosts. "They should take it down immediately.''
But Nativo Lopez, state national president of the Mexican American Political Association, said the ads were trying to persuade the Spanish-speaking and largely Mexican American audience that Channel 62 is "your news in Los Angeles.''
"This is a tempest that has been exaggerated by KFI,'' he said. "Now, the governor has aligned himself with them, and it's shameful. Latinos should have no illusions of what he stands for.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Governor on illegal immigration
The first comments: On April 19, Schwarzenegger told a group of newspaper publishers, "Close the borders. Close the borders in California, and all across Mexico and the United States.''
The apology: The next day, Schwarzenegger said, "I meant 'securing' our borders, not 'closing' them." He later joked that he should "go back to school and study" his English again.
Latest comments: Speaking on a radio show Thursday about an armed group of citizens patrolling the border, Schwarzenegger said, "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage.''
Schwarzenegger parts with Bush on group of armed volunteers that stops immigrants.
Carla Marinucci and Mark Martin, Chronicle Political Writers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/29/GUV.TMP
Friday, April 29, 2005
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, just a week after apologizing for suggesting California should "close the borders,'' warmly praised the Minutemen project -- an armed citizens group -- on Thursday for doing a terrific job of stopping illegal immigration from Mexico.
Although President Bush has criticized the group as vigilantes, Schwarzenegger said, "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage.''
Schwarzenegger, appearing on the conservative Los Angeles KFI radio's "John and Ken'' talk show, was asked his views of the Minutemen, who are using armed volunteers along the border in Arizona. The governor endorsed the effort, saying, "It just shows that it works.''
"Our federal government is not doing their job," Schwarzenegger said. "It's a shame that the private citizen has to go in there and start patrolling our borders."
Schwarzenegger's comments drew a rebuke from Latino politicians, as had those last week, and put the governor in a public disagreement with Bush. The president and the U.S. Border Patrol have criticized the Minutemen as interfering with law enforcement, and posing a danger to citizens and immigrants aiming to cross the border illegally.
Members of the Minutemen were delighted at Schwarzenegger's comments, noting he was the first governor to support them.
"Gov. Schwarzenegger is the most responsible politician in the West,'' said Grey Deacon, speaking Thursday from the group's headquarters in Tombstone, Ariz. "He is willing to stand up for what is correct in America.''
Deacon called Schwarzenegger's comments very courageous, noting that as a legal immigrant to the country, the governor "understands immigration policy better than most citizens.''
Deacon said the group planned to extend its effort to California by Oct. 1 and hoped the governor would welcome them.
Rob Stutzman, communications director with the governor, said Schwarzenegger had not been in contact with the group and had no current plans to contact them.
Schwarzenegger does not support illegal activity, Stutzman said, and he was merely "praising acts with citizens that are working diligently to solve a problem that their government is not solving.''
But California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the Republican governor should be urging the Republican president to put more federal agents on the border rather than endorsing the efforts of untrained volunteers.
Schwarzenegger, who more than 25 years ago immigrated to the United States as an aspiring bodybuilder from Austria, last week kicked off a controversy when he told newspaper publishers in San Francisco that California needed to close the borders to control illegal immigration. After he was severely criticized, the governor apologized and said he meant government needed to do more to secure the borders.
Schwarzenegger, in Thursday's 20-minute interview, was critical of what he characterized as the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration. He said he was deeply concerned watching recent Fox News videos showing "hundreds and hundreds of illegal immigrants coming across the border. I mean, what's that?''
Federal officials "owe it to the people to secure the borders ... they're not doing their job. They're leaving it way open, anyone can walk across,'' he said. "It's not just the problem of immigrants. It's also a problem that any terrorists can come in."
Asked what he would do to secure the border, the governor offered, "The most important thing is what they're doing with the Minutemen now ... have more people controlling it.''
But Schwarzenegger appeared stumped when he was asked why Bush had criticized the armed citizens as vigilantes.
"I really cannot tell you exactly what his thinking is," Schwarzenegger said of the president. "The next time I see him, I will have this conversation.''
Prominent Latinos and legislators immediately assailed the governor's statements as alarming.
"It is illegal to interfere with law enforcement, and if the governor is promoting that, then maybe we should think of bringing action against him,'' said Art Torres, state Democratic Party chairman. "When he took an oath of office to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States, that includes all of its laws. And when the president of the United States and the Border Patrol both suggest that these activities are not only not helpful, but possibly illegal, that needs to be seriously examined.'''
Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-Southgate (Los Angeles County), lambasted the governor's words as "the rantings of a desperate politician'' and an effort "to scapegoat people when you're down.''
"This isn't an action movie," De La Torre said. "It isn't cool that there are people out in the desert with guns.''
Political analysts said that with the governor's poll numbers dropping and his reform agenda stalled, the governor's comments on a conservative radio talk show about illegal immigration signaled a willingness to reprise the strategy of former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who hammered at the issue and fired up the GOP base in his 1994 successful bid for re-election.
But they called the move puzzling -- and politically risky at best.
"What happened to redistricting?'' said Barbara O'Connor, political communication professor at California State University Sacramento, referring to the governor's main political goal in the past weeks. "He's clearly not focused his message, and he's doing serial attacks on things he's unhappy with.''
"It's very odd that the governor would move in this direction,'' added Phil Trounstine, who now heads the San Jose State University Survey and Policy Research Institute.
As public support drops, "there's two ways the governor could go: One is to take a hard line and dig in on the conservative side. The other is to play a more centrist, bipartisan role,'' said Trounstine, who was a communications adviser to former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. "If the radio show is any indication, the governor has decided for the former, not the latter.''
Stutzman said the governor had intended to discuss his dismay with advertising for Spanish-language Channel 62, which has been prominently placed on major Los Angeles freeways.
The ads, which had riled some anti-illegal immigration advocates, shows a panorama of the Los Angeles skyline dominated by Mexico City's most prominent landmark -- the famed golden angel. The headline says: "Your news, your team. Los Angeles, CA.'' But California is crossed out and replaced with "Mexico.''
Schwarzenegger called on the station to pull the ads, calling them "extremely divisive and unnecessary. The big mistake is that it promotes illegal aliens to come in here, and it's the last thing that we need,'' he told the KFI-AM hosts. "They should take it down immediately.''
But Nativo Lopez, state national president of the Mexican American Political Association, said the ads were trying to persuade the Spanish-speaking and largely Mexican American audience that Channel 62 is "your news in Los Angeles.''
"This is a tempest that has been exaggerated by KFI,'' he said. "Now, the governor has aligned himself with them, and it's shameful. Latinos should have no illusions of what he stands for.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Governor on illegal immigration
The first comments: On April 19, Schwarzenegger told a group of newspaper publishers, "Close the borders. Close the borders in California, and all across Mexico and the United States.''
The apology: The next day, Schwarzenegger said, "I meant 'securing' our borders, not 'closing' them." He later joked that he should "go back to school and study" his English again.
Latest comments: Speaking on a radio show Thursday about an armed group of citizens patrolling the border, Schwarzenegger said, "They've done a terrific job. And they have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage.''
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:34 pm
http://www.saveourstate.org//Minuteman supporters went to their vehicles and fetched out their Confederate and Nazi flags:
QUOTE
Homeland Security Terrorist List Excludes Right-Wing Vigilantes
http://www.acsblog.org/international-affairs-1395-homeland-security-terrorist-list-excludes-rightwing-vigilantes.html
Congressional Quarterly reports that a Department of Homeland Security memo listing terrorists and terrorist groups excludes right-wing terrorist organizations. The memo includes several left-wing organizations, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) as terrorist threats, but excludes numerous anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements, which have staged numerous terrorist attacks that have killed scores of Americans. By comparison, the ELF has limited its actions to attacks on cars, businesses and property.
CQ details the crimes of some of the right-wing groups not included on the list:
The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded more than 500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was a member of the radical anti-abortion group Army of God. Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina manhunt in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.
Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998 shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.
Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in many smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus anthrax letters to abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003, for instance, a Texas man prosecutors say was a white supremacist and anti-government radical pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had discovered enough sodium cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns and several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage space he rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups, questions the wisdom of excluding right-wing organzations. “They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat,” said German. “If for some reason the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will regret that."
James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, adds that while right-wing groups are more likely to target human lives than left-wing terrorists, leftist incidents have increased in recent years. “When a conservative government comes to power, you see more activity from the opposite side of the spectrum,” he explained.
Well, gee—maybe that's because these right-wing groups are fundamentalist Republican shock troops--the paramilitary wing. An awful lot of Bush-ites around here, in central OR, have some heavy-duty firepower stashed in their homes.
Shouldn't come as a surprise, should it?
Hearings to extend The USA/Patriot Act are currently underway.
Since an accord saving the filibuster is reached, we can only hope that Senator Joe Lieberman, one of the so-called "Mod Squad," will vociferously mount one against this most unAmerican piece of legislation.
http://www.acsblog.org/international-affairs-1395-homeland-security-terrorist-list-excludes-rightwing-vigilantes.html
Congressional Quarterly reports that a Department of Homeland Security memo listing terrorists and terrorist groups excludes right-wing terrorist organizations. The memo includes several left-wing organizations, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) as terrorist threats, but excludes numerous anti-government groups, white supremacists and other radical right-wing movements, which have staged numerous terrorist attacks that have killed scores of Americans. By comparison, the ELF has limited its actions to attacks on cars, businesses and property.
CQ details the crimes of some of the right-wing groups not included on the list:
The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded more than 500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was a member of the radical anti-abortion group Army of God. Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina manhunt in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.
Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998 shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.
Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in many smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus anthrax letters to abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003, for instance, a Texas man prosecutors say was a white supremacist and anti-government radical pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had discovered enough sodium cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns and several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage space he rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups, questions the wisdom of excluding right-wing organzations. “They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat,” said German. “If for some reason the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will regret that."
James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, adds that while right-wing groups are more likely to target human lives than left-wing terrorists, leftist incidents have increased in recent years. “When a conservative government comes to power, you see more activity from the opposite side of the spectrum,” he explained.
Well, gee—maybe that's because these right-wing groups are fundamentalist Republican shock troops--the paramilitary wing. An awful lot of Bush-ites around here, in central OR, have some heavy-duty firepower stashed in their homes.
Shouldn't come as a surprise, should it?
Hearings to extend The USA/Patriot Act are currently underway.
Since an accord saving the filibuster is reached, we can only hope that Senator Joe Lieberman, one of the so-called "Mod Squad," will vociferously mount one against this most unAmerican piece of legislation.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:35 pm
David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle and he has done research of right-wing extremist groups for years. He has been following the Minuteman organization and its leaders in a six part series on his website, http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/.
QUOTE
[Note: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen.html began to count and describe the ways we know that the Minutemen are an extremist organizing strategy. No. 1 was their origins; http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen_14.html was their leadership; http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen_15.html was their following. http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen_16.html was their vigilantism. This http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen_17.html will examine the extent to which mainstream conservatives are embracing this extremism.]
Part V: The Mainstream Embrace
The Minutemen have chronically run low on volunteers for all their events. That didn't prevented them from declaring victory anyway, even before they officially wrapped up their three-ring anti-immigration circus in April:
"In just 17 days, the Minuteman Project has successfully sealed the San Pedro River Valley border from illegal activity," Minuteman organizer Jim Gilchrist said on the project's Web site in mid-April, halfway through the monthlong venture.
Gilchrist pointed to a drop in Border Patrol apprehensions in the area as proof: The agency caught about 2,500 illegal immigrants in the Naco area during the first half of the month; agents apprehended nearly 7,700 during the same period last year.
But others weren't so sure:
"They're taking credit for securing the border, and surely no one with any credibility believes that," said Michael Nicley, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which encompasses most of the Arizona border.
... Nicley and others attributed the drop to U.S. agents and the increased presence of Mexican police and members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican government-sponsored organization that tries to discourage people from crossing illegally and aids those stranded in the desert.
Authorities suggested that illegal immigrants are simply going around the Minutemen's lines.
"They are going west of Naco, but they are still trying," said Bertha de la Rosa, a coordinator with Grupo Beta.
But in a way, Gilchrist is right: the Minuteman Project was indeed a success. Not for actually doing anything substantive about immigration. Rather, it's been eminently successful in mainstreaming and legitimizing extremist vigilantism.
While the extremism that is buried deep within the beating heart of the Minuteman movement is disturbing enough, the most disquieting aspect of the whole phenomenon is how avidly it has been embraced by certain elements of mainstream conservatism.
The Minuteman have been touted in the media, which have generally insisted on portraying them as sincere citizens who are trying to defend the nation's borders. They've also been supported by a variety of Republican politicians, as well as officials within the Bush administration.
President Bush himself, however, told reporters this summer that he opposes the Minutemen:
"I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Bush said during a meeting in Texas with Mexican President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minster Paul Martin. "I'm for enforcing law in a rational way. It's why we've got a Border Patrol, and they ought to be in charge of enforcing the border."
Simcox said Bush's statement was disrespectful to citizens who simply want to help solve border problems. "We challenge the president to join us and come down and see for himself what's really going on," he told CNN.
Fox has also expressed concern over citizen border patrols. He told reporters he was watching the Minuteman Project carefully and would take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any activists break the law.
"We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups," Fox said. "We will use the law -- international law and even U.S. law -- to make sure that these types of groups ... will not have any opportunity to progress."
"We don't have any evidence or any indication either that terrorists from al Qaeda or any other part of the world are coming into Mexico and going into the United States," Fox said, countering recent statements made by senior Bush administration officials. "If there is any of that evidence, we will like to have it. But as I said, it does not exist."
Those remarks earned an immediate rebuke from Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who has been the Minutemen's most vocal supporter. But they also were countered by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, interviewed in the Washington Times, who even went so far as to suggest that President Bush might want to change his tune:
Mr. Hanner: Do you agree with the president that the Minuteman Project on the border right now are vigilantes?
Mr. DeLay: No. I'm not sure the president meant that. I think that they're providing an excellent service. It's no different than neighborhood-watch programs and I appreciate them doing it, as long as they can do it safely and don't get involved and do it the way they seem to be doing it, and that's just identifying people for the Border Patrol to come pick up.
DeLay is not alone. One United States Senator is ready to give them official imprimatur. Sen. Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, came up with the idea in mid-April:
A Republican senator said Wednesday the government should consider deputizing private citizens, like the Minuteman Patrol in Arizona, to help secure U.S. borders.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said the U.S. Border Patrol also should look to local law enforcement and state officials for help along the most porous parts of the U.S.-Mexico line.
"I wonder sometimes if maybe we're not looking too much to a federal solution," Allard told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.
"I happen to believe that those people down along the border that formed the Minutemen organization have some real concerns," Allard said.
A Texas congressman named John Culberson of Houston introduced legislation that would give official sanction, for the first time, to "border militias":
The Border Protection Corps Act, introduced on July 28, would authorize access to $6.8 billion in unused Homeland Security funds to form volunteer border militias that report to their respective county sheriffs.
It is not known when or if the measure would be put to a vote.
Gov. Rick Perry stopped short of endorsing the bill, noting in a prepared statement that illegal immigration was a "pervasive problem."
"Regardless of the mechanism, the federal government must provide a stronger presence along the border," Perry said in the statement issued July 28. "I welcome federal efforts to protect our borders from illegal immigrations and threats from terrorists."
Then there have been the public endorsements by California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In an interview on Los Angeles radio station KFI, Schwarzenegger said of the armed volunteers, "They've done a terrific job." According to the Governator, who drew criticism last week when he suggested it was time for the U.S. to "close the borders," the federal government isn't taking border security seriously enough. "Our federal government is not doing their job," Schwarzenegger said. "It's a shame that the private citizen has to go in there and start patrolling our borders."
Schwarzenegger pegged his concerns to the time he watched Fox News footage showing "hundreds and hundreds of illegal immigrants" coming across the border. "I mean, what's that?" he asked.
A couple of months later, Schwarzenegger defended the Minutemen again, comparing them to a "neighborhood watch":
"It's no different than if you have a neighborhood watch person there that's watching your children at the playground," he responded. "I don't see it any different."
We've been hearing nearly the identical line from the mainstream conservative pundit corps -- particularly Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity of Fox News, as well as Lou Dobbs of CNN -- who have been adamant that the Minutemen haven't a racist bone in their bodies, insisting like Schwarzenegger that they're just a gigantic "neighborhood watch."
Perhaps no one has been more prominent in promoting the Minutemen's image as a group of law-abiding, concerned citizens than CNN's Dobbs, who has made the Minutemen into the symbol of his ongoing campaign on behalf of immigration reform -- meaning he has adopted, essentially, far-right anti-immigrant nativism.
On several occasions, Dobbs' program has featured remarks from Minuteman organizer Chris Simcox, including an extended interview with Simcox that featured some genuinely noteworthy exchanges. Dobbs had reported on his program that the Minutemen were unarmed, and Simcox had to correct this:
DOBBS: And to be clear, you're not permitting any of your volunteers to be armed.
SIMCOX: No, that's not true. I can't do that. We have encouraged them, if you've read our standard operating procedure, that they are to be, again, aware of the laws of the state of Arizona. They're not to carry long arms, because that would make us an offensive -- that would give it an offensive-type attitude.
DOBBS: Well, Chris, let's...
SIMCOX: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but...
DOBBS: ... be straight up, 1,500 volunteers, untrained, unorganized, and without drill, that is not a reassuring statement that you just made, if you're going to have people with weapons, whether they are sidearms or not.
SIMCOX: Well, Lou, we have -- most of our volunteers are retired law enforcement officers, military veterans, and professional people who -- and not all of them are going to be armed, but the ones that want to be have that right to be.
But we have interaccountability by grouping people together in teams, so that we have people watching each other and making sure that we hold each other accountable. Because this is a political protest, no matter what. We know that. And it would be hypocritical of us to want the government to enforce the laws if we were out there to break the laws.
What was really appalling, though, was the way Dobbs fawned on Simcox, especially at the end:
DOBBS: Outstanding. We wish you all of the success in the world. And you know, you said it at the outset, that it's a shame that it takes activism on the part of citizens. You know, I think that we could also make a counterargument. It's kind of nice to know that Americans still have that activism in their hearts, the capacity to volunteer to do the right thing. And we thank you, Chris Simcox, for being with us.
Nor have the typically "right leaning" media figures been alone in plumping the Minutemen's image. There have been sympathetic portrayals in such diverse media outlets the Ventura County Star, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, all three of which portrayed Minuteman volunteer Joe McCutchen -- an Arkansan with a long record of involvement in far-right causes, including Jared Taylor's American Renaissance and the Council of Conservative Citizens -- as an ordinary "concerned citizen."
Typical of the media treatment was a remarkably nearsighted Monterey Weekly piece that offered the following assessment:
Indeed, it soon seemed that the hysteria over the armed and dangerous Minutemen was much ado about nothing. Retired men and women sitting on the backs of pickup trucks in six-hour shifts, concentrated along a two-mile stretch of border fence eyeing the vacant desert, appeared more like a group on a bird watching excursion than a paramilitary force.
The author of the piece, Andy Isaacson, thus blithely ignores one of the realities about dealing with organizations like the Minutemen: when they're posing in front of the cameras, they're very careful about what they say and how they appear. It's what they're doing and saying when no one is looking that is the problem.
I had a little experience with this in my dealings with a previous permutation of the militia movement. The Washington State Militia, for instance, held public rallies and talked before the cameras about how they were just trying to be a "neighborhood watch" out to protect their fellow citizens. Behind closed doors, as we later learned, they were building pipe bombs and talking about blowing up railroad tunnels as well as their fellow citizens.
The Minutemen's public face works exactly the same: Have your spokesmen work hard to present a sincere and concerned image of ordinary citizens who are just "fed up," while behind closed doors they let their hair down. The core of the Minutemen comprises a corps of True Believers from the extremist right. The leaders spout talk about the "war on terror" in public, but the followers mostly (in private, of course) spout talk about their neighborhoods and homes being "invaded" by criminal brown people.
A good example of this popped up in a recent story out of Tennessee involving a formative Minuteman operation there. Tennessee, of course, has no international border; and so its Minutemen, unsurprisingly, are focused on the "invasion" of Latinos from elsewhere:
Before a meeting in Hamblen County Tuesday night, 6 News asked meeting leader Carl Whitaker if he's operating a hate group, like some people say.
"We're not a hate group. We're a concerned group. We're concerned what's happening," Whitaker says. "If people are here illegally and they want to get legal, we would be glad to try to help them follow through the process. We don't hate anybody."
He says the Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen are working to expose companies that hire illegal aliens and take jobs away from taxpaying Americans. "We've turned in five different places of employment here that are hiring illegals."
But another supporter told a different story. Off-camera, James Drinnon says there are more Mexicans than African-Americans in Hamblen County. But he didn't really say African-American. He used the "N" word.
On camera, Drinnon says, "I think they ought to get them all out. Most of them in here. That's where all the dope's coming from. Most of them's Hispanic."
The kid-glove treatment, in fact, has so largely been pervasive among the media and politicians both. A more recent example occurred recently in Arizona, during a visit by Republican legislators from Colorado to a ranch owned by a figure closely associated not just with the Minutemen, but also bona fide hate groups:
The tour was organized by Glenn Spencer, whose home is about 1,000 feet from the border. He recently organized a number of border-watching activities, including a few with the Minuteman group.
Spencer said he had been a military researcher who worked at the Pentagon before moving to Arizona to set up a nonprofit group that investigates illegal immigration.
He showed aerial photographs and videos of immigrants crossing the border illegally near his home. He also showed visitors a miniature reconnaissance plane with a camera attached to it that he spent $40,000 to develop and build.
"We do this to expose the malfeasance of U.S. border patrol officials, who have failed us in protecting our borders," he said. "What can U.S. citizens do to help? A lot."
Spencer also told the Colorado legislators and a group of Republican political candidates from Arizona about a volunteer who crossed the border into Mexico and brought back a "simulated weapon of mass destruction."
"We did it to see if anybody would try to stop us," Spencer said. "This happened supposedly along the most heavily policed border area in the United States."
There also have been federal officials who have voiced support for the Minutemen. A top Border Patrol official at one point endorsed the Minuteman concept:
"We need more Border Patrol agents, there's no question about that," Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner told members of the House Government Reform Committee. CBP is in charge of the Border Patrol.
Bonner said his team has worked up a proposed increase in agents. He said the number is in the thousands but declined to be more specific, saying he still has to walk the plan through the Homeland Security Department.
... Bonner said CBP also is evaluating the effectiveness of using citizen patrols in a more formal way. He referred to the Minuteman Project, which set up citizen camps along a 23-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border in April to observe and report illegal activity.
Minuteman organizers claim their efforts helped the Border Patrol apprehend 335 individuals illegally trying to enter the country, and deterred others who would have tried.
"The actions of the Minutemen were, I believe, well motivated," Bonner said. "There were no incidents, there were no acts of vigilantism, and that's a tribute to the organizers and leaders of the Minuteman Project."
Bonner later gave outright support to the idea of actually giving the Minuteman concept official imprimatur:
The top U.S. border enforcement official said Wednesday that his agency is exploring ways to involve citizen volunteers in creating "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary" -- a significant shift after a high-profile civilian campaign this spring along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner told The Associated Press that his agency began looking into citizen involvement after noting how eager volunteers were to stop illegal immigration.
"We value having eyes and ears of citizens, and I think that would be one of the things we are looking at is how you better organize, let's say, a citizen effort," Bonner said.
He said that could involve training of volunteers organized "in a way that would be something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary."
Bonner characterized the idea of an auxiliary as "an area we're looking at," and a spokeswoman said it hadn't been discussed yet with top Homeland Security officials.
A day later, his superiors at the Department of Homeland Security backed away from any such proposals:
"There are currently no plans by the Department of Homeland Security to use civilian volunteers to patrol the border," spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in a statement. "That job should continue to be done by the highly trained, professional law enforcement officials of the Border Patrol and its partner agencies."
Bonner retired shortly thereafter.
Part V: The Mainstream Embrace
The Minutemen have chronically run low on volunteers for all their events. That didn't prevented them from declaring victory anyway, even before they officially wrapped up their three-ring anti-immigration circus in April:
"In just 17 days, the Minuteman Project has successfully sealed the San Pedro River Valley border from illegal activity," Minuteman organizer Jim Gilchrist said on the project's Web site in mid-April, halfway through the monthlong venture.
Gilchrist pointed to a drop in Border Patrol apprehensions in the area as proof: The agency caught about 2,500 illegal immigrants in the Naco area during the first half of the month; agents apprehended nearly 7,700 during the same period last year.
But others weren't so sure:
"They're taking credit for securing the border, and surely no one with any credibility believes that," said Michael Nicley, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which encompasses most of the Arizona border.
... Nicley and others attributed the drop to U.S. agents and the increased presence of Mexican police and members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican government-sponsored organization that tries to discourage people from crossing illegally and aids those stranded in the desert.
Authorities suggested that illegal immigrants are simply going around the Minutemen's lines.
"They are going west of Naco, but they are still trying," said Bertha de la Rosa, a coordinator with Grupo Beta.
But in a way, Gilchrist is right: the Minuteman Project was indeed a success. Not for actually doing anything substantive about immigration. Rather, it's been eminently successful in mainstreaming and legitimizing extremist vigilantism.
While the extremism that is buried deep within the beating heart of the Minuteman movement is disturbing enough, the most disquieting aspect of the whole phenomenon is how avidly it has been embraced by certain elements of mainstream conservatism.
The Minuteman have been touted in the media, which have generally insisted on portraying them as sincere citizens who are trying to defend the nation's borders. They've also been supported by a variety of Republican politicians, as well as officials within the Bush administration.
President Bush himself, however, told reporters this summer that he opposes the Minutemen:
"I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Bush said during a meeting in Texas with Mexican President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minster Paul Martin. "I'm for enforcing law in a rational way. It's why we've got a Border Patrol, and they ought to be in charge of enforcing the border."
Simcox said Bush's statement was disrespectful to citizens who simply want to help solve border problems. "We challenge the president to join us and come down and see for himself what's really going on," he told CNN.
Fox has also expressed concern over citizen border patrols. He told reporters he was watching the Minuteman Project carefully and would take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any activists break the law.
"We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups," Fox said. "We will use the law -- international law and even U.S. law -- to make sure that these types of groups ... will not have any opportunity to progress."
"We don't have any evidence or any indication either that terrorists from al Qaeda or any other part of the world are coming into Mexico and going into the United States," Fox said, countering recent statements made by senior Bush administration officials. "If there is any of that evidence, we will like to have it. But as I said, it does not exist."
Those remarks earned an immediate rebuke from Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who has been the Minutemen's most vocal supporter. But they also were countered by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, interviewed in the Washington Times, who even went so far as to suggest that President Bush might want to change his tune:
Mr. Hanner: Do you agree with the president that the Minuteman Project on the border right now are vigilantes?
Mr. DeLay: No. I'm not sure the president meant that. I think that they're providing an excellent service. It's no different than neighborhood-watch programs and I appreciate them doing it, as long as they can do it safely and don't get involved and do it the way they seem to be doing it, and that's just identifying people for the Border Patrol to come pick up.
DeLay is not alone. One United States Senator is ready to give them official imprimatur. Sen. Wayne Allard, a Colorado Republican, came up with the idea in mid-April:
A Republican senator said Wednesday the government should consider deputizing private citizens, like the Minuteman Patrol in Arizona, to help secure U.S. borders.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said the U.S. Border Patrol also should look to local law enforcement and state officials for help along the most porous parts of the U.S.-Mexico line.
"I wonder sometimes if maybe we're not looking too much to a federal solution," Allard told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.
"I happen to believe that those people down along the border that formed the Minutemen organization have some real concerns," Allard said.
A Texas congressman named John Culberson of Houston introduced legislation that would give official sanction, for the first time, to "border militias":
The Border Protection Corps Act, introduced on July 28, would authorize access to $6.8 billion in unused Homeland Security funds to form volunteer border militias that report to their respective county sheriffs.
It is not known when or if the measure would be put to a vote.
Gov. Rick Perry stopped short of endorsing the bill, noting in a prepared statement that illegal immigration was a "pervasive problem."
"Regardless of the mechanism, the federal government must provide a stronger presence along the border," Perry said in the statement issued July 28. "I welcome federal efforts to protect our borders from illegal immigrations and threats from terrorists."
Then there have been the public endorsements by California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In an interview on Los Angeles radio station KFI, Schwarzenegger said of the armed volunteers, "They've done a terrific job." According to the Governator, who drew criticism last week when he suggested it was time for the U.S. to "close the borders," the federal government isn't taking border security seriously enough. "Our federal government is not doing their job," Schwarzenegger said. "It's a shame that the private citizen has to go in there and start patrolling our borders."
Schwarzenegger pegged his concerns to the time he watched Fox News footage showing "hundreds and hundreds of illegal immigrants" coming across the border. "I mean, what's that?" he asked.
A couple of months later, Schwarzenegger defended the Minutemen again, comparing them to a "neighborhood watch":
"It's no different than if you have a neighborhood watch person there that's watching your children at the playground," he responded. "I don't see it any different."
We've been hearing nearly the identical line from the mainstream conservative pundit corps -- particularly Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity of Fox News, as well as Lou Dobbs of CNN -- who have been adamant that the Minutemen haven't a racist bone in their bodies, insisting like Schwarzenegger that they're just a gigantic "neighborhood watch."
Perhaps no one has been more prominent in promoting the Minutemen's image as a group of law-abiding, concerned citizens than CNN's Dobbs, who has made the Minutemen into the symbol of his ongoing campaign on behalf of immigration reform -- meaning he has adopted, essentially, far-right anti-immigrant nativism.
On several occasions, Dobbs' program has featured remarks from Minuteman organizer Chris Simcox, including an extended interview with Simcox that featured some genuinely noteworthy exchanges. Dobbs had reported on his program that the Minutemen were unarmed, and Simcox had to correct this:
DOBBS: And to be clear, you're not permitting any of your volunteers to be armed.
SIMCOX: No, that's not true. I can't do that. We have encouraged them, if you've read our standard operating procedure, that they are to be, again, aware of the laws of the state of Arizona. They're not to carry long arms, because that would make us an offensive -- that would give it an offensive-type attitude.
DOBBS: Well, Chris, let's...
SIMCOX: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE), but...
DOBBS: ... be straight up, 1,500 volunteers, untrained, unorganized, and without drill, that is not a reassuring statement that you just made, if you're going to have people with weapons, whether they are sidearms or not.
SIMCOX: Well, Lou, we have -- most of our volunteers are retired law enforcement officers, military veterans, and professional people who -- and not all of them are going to be armed, but the ones that want to be have that right to be.
But we have interaccountability by grouping people together in teams, so that we have people watching each other and making sure that we hold each other accountable. Because this is a political protest, no matter what. We know that. And it would be hypocritical of us to want the government to enforce the laws if we were out there to break the laws.
What was really appalling, though, was the way Dobbs fawned on Simcox, especially at the end:
DOBBS: Outstanding. We wish you all of the success in the world. And you know, you said it at the outset, that it's a shame that it takes activism on the part of citizens. You know, I think that we could also make a counterargument. It's kind of nice to know that Americans still have that activism in their hearts, the capacity to volunteer to do the right thing. And we thank you, Chris Simcox, for being with us.
Nor have the typically "right leaning" media figures been alone in plumping the Minutemen's image. There have been sympathetic portrayals in such diverse media outlets the Ventura County Star, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, all three of which portrayed Minuteman volunteer Joe McCutchen -- an Arkansan with a long record of involvement in far-right causes, including Jared Taylor's American Renaissance and the Council of Conservative Citizens -- as an ordinary "concerned citizen."
Typical of the media treatment was a remarkably nearsighted Monterey Weekly piece that offered the following assessment:
Indeed, it soon seemed that the hysteria over the armed and dangerous Minutemen was much ado about nothing. Retired men and women sitting on the backs of pickup trucks in six-hour shifts, concentrated along a two-mile stretch of border fence eyeing the vacant desert, appeared more like a group on a bird watching excursion than a paramilitary force.
The author of the piece, Andy Isaacson, thus blithely ignores one of the realities about dealing with organizations like the Minutemen: when they're posing in front of the cameras, they're very careful about what they say and how they appear. It's what they're doing and saying when no one is looking that is the problem.
I had a little experience with this in my dealings with a previous permutation of the militia movement. The Washington State Militia, for instance, held public rallies and talked before the cameras about how they were just trying to be a "neighborhood watch" out to protect their fellow citizens. Behind closed doors, as we later learned, they were building pipe bombs and talking about blowing up railroad tunnels as well as their fellow citizens.
The Minutemen's public face works exactly the same: Have your spokesmen work hard to present a sincere and concerned image of ordinary citizens who are just "fed up," while behind closed doors they let their hair down. The core of the Minutemen comprises a corps of True Believers from the extremist right. The leaders spout talk about the "war on terror" in public, but the followers mostly (in private, of course) spout talk about their neighborhoods and homes being "invaded" by criminal brown people.
A good example of this popped up in a recent story out of Tennessee involving a formative Minuteman operation there. Tennessee, of course, has no international border; and so its Minutemen, unsurprisingly, are focused on the "invasion" of Latinos from elsewhere:
Before a meeting in Hamblen County Tuesday night, 6 News asked meeting leader Carl Whitaker if he's operating a hate group, like some people say.
"We're not a hate group. We're a concerned group. We're concerned what's happening," Whitaker says. "If people are here illegally and they want to get legal, we would be glad to try to help them follow through the process. We don't hate anybody."
He says the Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen are working to expose companies that hire illegal aliens and take jobs away from taxpaying Americans. "We've turned in five different places of employment here that are hiring illegals."
But another supporter told a different story. Off-camera, James Drinnon says there are more Mexicans than African-Americans in Hamblen County. But he didn't really say African-American. He used the "N" word.
On camera, Drinnon says, "I think they ought to get them all out. Most of them in here. That's where all the dope's coming from. Most of them's Hispanic."
The kid-glove treatment, in fact, has so largely been pervasive among the media and politicians both. A more recent example occurred recently in Arizona, during a visit by Republican legislators from Colorado to a ranch owned by a figure closely associated not just with the Minutemen, but also bona fide hate groups:
The tour was organized by Glenn Spencer, whose home is about 1,000 feet from the border. He recently organized a number of border-watching activities, including a few with the Minuteman group.
Spencer said he had been a military researcher who worked at the Pentagon before moving to Arizona to set up a nonprofit group that investigates illegal immigration.
He showed aerial photographs and videos of immigrants crossing the border illegally near his home. He also showed visitors a miniature reconnaissance plane with a camera attached to it that he spent $40,000 to develop and build.
"We do this to expose the malfeasance of U.S. border patrol officials, who have failed us in protecting our borders," he said. "What can U.S. citizens do to help? A lot."
Spencer also told the Colorado legislators and a group of Republican political candidates from Arizona about a volunteer who crossed the border into Mexico and brought back a "simulated weapon of mass destruction."
"We did it to see if anybody would try to stop us," Spencer said. "This happened supposedly along the most heavily policed border area in the United States."
There also have been federal officials who have voiced support for the Minutemen. A top Border Patrol official at one point endorsed the Minuteman concept:
"We need more Border Patrol agents, there's no question about that," Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner told members of the House Government Reform Committee. CBP is in charge of the Border Patrol.
Bonner said his team has worked up a proposed increase in agents. He said the number is in the thousands but declined to be more specific, saying he still has to walk the plan through the Homeland Security Department.
... Bonner said CBP also is evaluating the effectiveness of using citizen patrols in a more formal way. He referred to the Minuteman Project, which set up citizen camps along a 23-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border in April to observe and report illegal activity.
Minuteman organizers claim their efforts helped the Border Patrol apprehend 335 individuals illegally trying to enter the country, and deterred others who would have tried.
"The actions of the Minutemen were, I believe, well motivated," Bonner said. "There were no incidents, there were no acts of vigilantism, and that's a tribute to the organizers and leaders of the Minuteman Project."
Bonner later gave outright support to the idea of actually giving the Minuteman concept official imprimatur:
The top U.S. border enforcement official said Wednesday that his agency is exploring ways to involve citizen volunteers in creating "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary" -- a significant shift after a high-profile civilian campaign this spring along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner told The Associated Press that his agency began looking into citizen involvement after noting how eager volunteers were to stop illegal immigration.
"We value having eyes and ears of citizens, and I think that would be one of the things we are looking at is how you better organize, let's say, a citizen effort," Bonner said.
He said that could involve training of volunteers organized "in a way that would be something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary."
Bonner characterized the idea of an auxiliary as "an area we're looking at," and a spokeswoman said it hadn't been discussed yet with top Homeland Security officials.
A day later, his superiors at the Department of Homeland Security backed away from any such proposals:
"There are currently no plans by the Department of Homeland Security to use civilian volunteers to patrol the border," spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said in a statement. "That job should continue to be done by the highly trained, professional law enforcement officials of the Border Patrol and its partner agencies."
Bonner retired shortly thereafter.
Hey, I saw our old friend Chris Simcox on the new tonight. He is the Neo-facscist that is the spokesman for the Minutemen vigilante movement. The media is always going to him, but not revealing his background and historical connections. Here is an update on his recent activities that the TV news media ignores--his daughter is saying her father tried to rape her.
For the complete report on this fascist see http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?pid=166
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:37 pm
QUOTE
The Minutemen's father figure
Thursday, December 15, 2005
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
Suzy Buchanan and David Holthouse of the Southern Poverty Law Center went a-digging into the personal history of Minuteman leader Chris Simcox, and their final report reveals plenty of troubling information.
The portrait of Simcox that emerges is of a paranoid self-promoter who sees himself as an overlooked genius finally coming into his own. He also is prone to extremely unstable behavior:
Court records obtained by the Center's Intelligence Project show Simcox's second ex-wife, Kim Dunbar, filed an emergency appeal in September 2001 to obtain full custody of their teenage son because she feared that Simcox had suffered a mental breakdown and was dangerous.
Dunbar declined to be interviewed for this article, but her sworn affidavits speak for themselves. In one, Dunbar testified that throughout their 10-year marriage, Simcox was prone to sudden, violent rages. "He once took a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill himself," she testified. "When he was angry, he broke furniture, car windows, he banged his head against the wall repeatedly and punched things."
Dunbar said that when their son was 4 years old, Simcox slapped him so hard that a mark remained on his face for two days. Another time, she testified, she grabbed her young son in her arms and jumped out a window because Simcox was throwing furniture at them. After such episodes, she said, Simcox would become despondent. "He would stare at walls, mumbling to himself." In the affidavits, Dunbar said she repeatedly pressured Simcox to seek professional help and even tried to have him hospitalized. But he persistently refused treatment. "Eventually," she said, "the only thing I could do was file for divorce."
Simcox and Dunbar initially shared custody of their son. There was no legal dispute until shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, when Dunbar suddenly filed a flurry of emergency appeals. "While Chris has always been prone to strong opinions and ranting behavior, this last episode has gone even farther," she told the court. "I am convinced he has had some kind of mental lapse and I am now, more than ever, afraid for my son to be in Chris' care." Dunbar grew frightened after Simcox left her a series of bizarre voicemail messages beginning that Sept. 13, in which he went on angry diatribes about the Constitution, patriotism, and impending nuclear attacks on Los Angles, and talked about training their 15-year-old son in the use of firearms. "I will begin teaching him the art of protecting himself with weapons," Simcox said in one recorded message he left for Dunbar. "I purchased another gun. I have more than a few weapons, and I intend on teaching my son how to use them." Simcox added, "I will no longer trust anyone in this country. My life has changed forever, and if you don't get that, you are brainwashed like everybody else." In phone conversations with his son that his ex-wife recorded and submitted to the court as evidence of Simcox's mental instability, he challenged the boy to become "a man and a real American." "You better stop playing baseball, buddy, and you better do something real, 'cause life will never be the same," Simcox thundered. "I'm going to go down to the Mexican border and sign up for the government for border patrol to protect the borders of the country that I love. You hear how serious I am."It's also quite clear that Simcox is motivated less by real concerns about border security than about the influx of Latinos into the United States:In January 2003, while on patrol with Civil Homeland Defense, Simcox was arrested by federal park rangers for illegally carrying a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun in a national park. Also in Simcox's possession at the time of that arrest, according to police records, were a document entitled "Mission Plan," a police scanner, two walkie-talkies, and a toy figure of Wyatt Earp on horseback.
Two months later, in a speech to the California Coalition on Immigration Reform, a hate group whose leader, Barbara Coe, routinely refers to Mexicans as "savages," Simcox offered a dire warning to his audience. "Take heed of our weapons because we're going to defend our borders by any means necessary," he said. "There's something very fishy going on at the border. The Mexican army is driving American vehicles -- but carrying Chinese weapons. I have personally seen what I can only believe to be Chinese troops." Of illegal immigrants, Simcox added: "They're trashing their neighborhoods, refusing to assimilate, standing on street corners, jeering at little girls walking on their way to school."He also has been known to inflate his resume:"When I'm asked by reporters if I'm a racist, I tell them, 'Why don't you go ask my black ex-wife and my biracial children and the members of the racial diversity committee I chaired whether I'm a racist?'" he said at the October conference.Simcox, evidently, was never the chair of his school's diversity committee. Even more disturbing, however, is what comes next:"When they ask me, 'Well, what do you have to say to people who call you a racist?' I come back at them with, 'What do you have to say to people who call you a child molester?'" That's a strange rhetorical device given the accusations leveled at Simcox in the summer of 1998, when his 14-year-old daughter from his first marriage -- prior to his union with Dunbar -- came to live with him in Los Angeles. In separate interviews with the Intelligence Report, two of Simcox's former colleagues at Wildwood and his first ex-wife gave the same account. They said that Simcox helped his daughter get a job babysitting for a Wildwood School employee and that one night, Simcox's daughter showed up unexpectedly at her employer's house, visibly upset, alleging that her father had just attempted to sexually molest her. "He tried to molest our daughter when he was intoxicated," said Deborah Crews, Simcox's first ex-wife and the girl's mother. "When she ran out, he tried to say he was just giving her a leg massage and she got the wrong idea." Contacted by the Report, Simcox refused to answer four direct questions about the molestation allegations. "I would never answer those questions to you. You can't ask those questions," he said. "You're on a witch hunt and you're trying to discredit our movement, which is to secure the borders. ... My personal life has nothing to do with anything that goes on here." No charges were filed against Simcox, but Crews said she and her daughter immediately broke off all contact with him. "He's a drastic, chaotic, very dangerous guy," said Crews. "I'm surprised he hasn't shot anybody yet. I see him on TV and I have to turn if off, because it makes me sick to see him getting all this attention."If this is someone's idea of the leader of a "neighborhood watch," I'd be watching my neighborhood very closely indeed.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
Suzy Buchanan and David Holthouse of the Southern Poverty Law Center went a-digging into the personal history of Minuteman leader Chris Simcox, and their final report reveals plenty of troubling information.
The portrait of Simcox that emerges is of a paranoid self-promoter who sees himself as an overlooked genius finally coming into his own. He also is prone to extremely unstable behavior:
Court records obtained by the Center's Intelligence Project show Simcox's second ex-wife, Kim Dunbar, filed an emergency appeal in September 2001 to obtain full custody of their teenage son because she feared that Simcox had suffered a mental breakdown and was dangerous.
Dunbar declined to be interviewed for this article, but her sworn affidavits speak for themselves. In one, Dunbar testified that throughout their 10-year marriage, Simcox was prone to sudden, violent rages. "He once took a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill himself," she testified. "When he was angry, he broke furniture, car windows, he banged his head against the wall repeatedly and punched things."
Dunbar said that when their son was 4 years old, Simcox slapped him so hard that a mark remained on his face for two days. Another time, she testified, she grabbed her young son in her arms and jumped out a window because Simcox was throwing furniture at them. After such episodes, she said, Simcox would become despondent. "He would stare at walls, mumbling to himself." In the affidavits, Dunbar said she repeatedly pressured Simcox to seek professional help and even tried to have him hospitalized. But he persistently refused treatment. "Eventually," she said, "the only thing I could do was file for divorce."
Simcox and Dunbar initially shared custody of their son. There was no legal dispute until shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, when Dunbar suddenly filed a flurry of emergency appeals. "While Chris has always been prone to strong opinions and ranting behavior, this last episode has gone even farther," she told the court. "I am convinced he has had some kind of mental lapse and I am now, more than ever, afraid for my son to be in Chris' care." Dunbar grew frightened after Simcox left her a series of bizarre voicemail messages beginning that Sept. 13, in which he went on angry diatribes about the Constitution, patriotism, and impending nuclear attacks on Los Angles, and talked about training their 15-year-old son in the use of firearms. "I will begin teaching him the art of protecting himself with weapons," Simcox said in one recorded message he left for Dunbar. "I purchased another gun. I have more than a few weapons, and I intend on teaching my son how to use them." Simcox added, "I will no longer trust anyone in this country. My life has changed forever, and if you don't get that, you are brainwashed like everybody else." In phone conversations with his son that his ex-wife recorded and submitted to the court as evidence of Simcox's mental instability, he challenged the boy to become "a man and a real American." "You better stop playing baseball, buddy, and you better do something real, 'cause life will never be the same," Simcox thundered. "I'm going to go down to the Mexican border and sign up for the government for border patrol to protect the borders of the country that I love. You hear how serious I am."It's also quite clear that Simcox is motivated less by real concerns about border security than about the influx of Latinos into the United States:In January 2003, while on patrol with Civil Homeland Defense, Simcox was arrested by federal park rangers for illegally carrying a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun in a national park. Also in Simcox's possession at the time of that arrest, according to police records, were a document entitled "Mission Plan," a police scanner, two walkie-talkies, and a toy figure of Wyatt Earp on horseback.
Two months later, in a speech to the California Coalition on Immigration Reform, a hate group whose leader, Barbara Coe, routinely refers to Mexicans as "savages," Simcox offered a dire warning to his audience. "Take heed of our weapons because we're going to defend our borders by any means necessary," he said. "There's something very fishy going on at the border. The Mexican army is driving American vehicles -- but carrying Chinese weapons. I have personally seen what I can only believe to be Chinese troops." Of illegal immigrants, Simcox added: "They're trashing their neighborhoods, refusing to assimilate, standing on street corners, jeering at little girls walking on their way to school."He also has been known to inflate his resume:"When I'm asked by reporters if I'm a racist, I tell them, 'Why don't you go ask my black ex-wife and my biracial children and the members of the racial diversity committee I chaired whether I'm a racist?'" he said at the October conference.Simcox, evidently, was never the chair of his school's diversity committee. Even more disturbing, however, is what comes next:"When they ask me, 'Well, what do you have to say to people who call you a racist?' I come back at them with, 'What do you have to say to people who call you a child molester?'" That's a strange rhetorical device given the accusations leveled at Simcox in the summer of 1998, when his 14-year-old daughter from his first marriage -- prior to his union with Dunbar -- came to live with him in Los Angeles. In separate interviews with the Intelligence Report, two of Simcox's former colleagues at Wildwood and his first ex-wife gave the same account. They said that Simcox helped his daughter get a job babysitting for a Wildwood School employee and that one night, Simcox's daughter showed up unexpectedly at her employer's house, visibly upset, alleging that her father had just attempted to sexually molest her. "He tried to molest our daughter when he was intoxicated," said Deborah Crews, Simcox's first ex-wife and the girl's mother. "When she ran out, he tried to say he was just giving her a leg massage and she got the wrong idea." Contacted by the Report, Simcox refused to answer four direct questions about the molestation allegations. "I would never answer those questions to you. You can't ask those questions," he said. "You're on a witch hunt and you're trying to discredit our movement, which is to secure the borders. ... My personal life has nothing to do with anything that goes on here." No charges were filed against Simcox, but Crews said she and her daughter immediately broke off all contact with him. "He's a drastic, chaotic, very dangerous guy," said Crews. "I'm surprised he hasn't shot anybody yet. I see him on TV and I have to turn if off, because it makes me sick to see him getting all this attention."If this is someone's idea of the leader of a "neighborhood watch," I'd be watching my neighborhood very closely indeed.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:39 pm
...So the steps are gradual. The para-military groups form, the government used the media to spread propaganda, "stairical" comments, then citizens advocate murder--sound familar?
Jews forced to scrub Anti-Nazi slogans from Austrian streets
Jews Forced To Carry Anti-Jewish Signs--this was "satirical."
Jewish Lawyer Carrying Self-Insulting Sign--"I will not complain to the police again." This was "satirical."
QUOTE
'Shoot illegals' comment earns host FCC complaint
Radio talker says suggestion to 'kill whoever crosses the border' satirical
April 8, 2006
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Arizona's attorney general and a U.S. federal attorney filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission yesterday against a Phoenix radio station and a fill-in talk show host over comments made last month suggesting the solution to the illegal immigration problem was to "randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border."
In their letter to the FCC, Attorney General Terry Goddard and U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton criticized the March 8 broadcast by host Brian James on KFYI as "dangerous."
"This type of threatening and inciting speech is dangerous and totally irresponsible for anyone, particularly a licensed body using the public airways," Goddard and Charlton wrote. "We are deeply concerned that, given the intensifying conflict over immigration in Arizona, this speech may lead to violence. Tempers are short on both sides and the situation is highly volatile."
"At no time during this hour did Mr. James disavow violence or indicate he was joking," the letter claimed. The pair also urged the FCC to consider sanctions against the station.
According to a partial transcript of the program – KFYI did not preserve a tape of the broadcast, according to station manager Laurie Cantillo – James was taking suggestions from listeners for ways to end the influx of illegal aliens.
"What we'll do is randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border," he said. "Step over there and you die. You get to decide whether it's your lucky night or not. I think that would be more fun."
James said he would be "happy to sit there with my high-powered rifle and my night scope" and shoot border crossers, adding the National Guard should be permitted to shoot illegal immigrants and receive "$100 a head." +
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49657
Radio talker says suggestion to 'kill whoever crosses the border' satirical
April 8, 2006
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Arizona's attorney general and a U.S. federal attorney filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission yesterday against a Phoenix radio station and a fill-in talk show host over comments made last month suggesting the solution to the illegal immigration problem was to "randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border."
In their letter to the FCC, Attorney General Terry Goddard and U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton criticized the March 8 broadcast by host Brian James on KFYI as "dangerous."
"This type of threatening and inciting speech is dangerous and totally irresponsible for anyone, particularly a licensed body using the public airways," Goddard and Charlton wrote. "We are deeply concerned that, given the intensifying conflict over immigration in Arizona, this speech may lead to violence. Tempers are short on both sides and the situation is highly volatile."
"At no time during this hour did Mr. James disavow violence or indicate he was joking," the letter claimed. The pair also urged the FCC to consider sanctions against the station.
According to a partial transcript of the program – KFYI did not preserve a tape of the broadcast, according to station manager Laurie Cantillo – James was taking suggestions from listeners for ways to end the influx of illegal aliens.
"What we'll do is randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border," he said. "Step over there and you die. You get to decide whether it's your lucky night or not. I think that would be more fun."
James said he would be "happy to sit there with my high-powered rifle and my night scope" and shoot border crossers, adding the National Guard should be permitted to shoot illegal immigrants and receive "$100 a head." +
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49657
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:39 pm
David Neiwert is an expert on hate groups and he is noticing an upswing in "elimination" talk. I posted this article because hate speech is using the term "rats" to dehumanize illegal aliens. This is not the first time in history this has been done.
QUOTE
Immigration and eliminationism
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/04/reconquista.html
by David Neiwert
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Those mass marches are having their effect: They're scaring the crap out of the nativists.
And they're fighting back in the usual, expected fashion ... by lying and making ugly but empty threats.
At least, we hope they're empty. Because what they're advocating, increasingly, is eliminating all 11 million illegal aliens in the United States. How they'll achieve that is something, however, they leave to our imaginations.
Recently a powerful Arizona legislator named Russell Pearce, a Republican from Mesa, recently uttered the following in response to the marches:
They're illegal and they have no right to be marching down our streets. They have no constitutional rights. They don't have First-, Fourth-, Sixth amendment rights. They're here illegally and they chose to be here illegally.
Pearce heads the state's House appropriations panel, has served as a judge, and was for many years a law-enforcement officer. And he really believes this?
As Blogs for Arizona explains, illegal aliens in fact have all kinds of rights under the constitution, including due-process rights, free-speech rights, search-and-seizure rights, and criminal-justice rights.
Of course, we hear the word "illegal" all the time in the nativists' arguments. "What part of 'illegal' don't you understand?" is one of the Minutemen's favorite T-shirt slogans.
To which the appropriate response is: "What part of 'bad law' don't you understand?"
The bottom line in the immigration debate is that current immigration law -- as well as the proposals being floated by the Tancredo wing of the Republican Party (including James Sensenbrenner) -- is inadequate for dealing with the realities forced on us by economic forces which no amount of border fence and no mass expulsions will overcome. As I explained before, there are two forces driving the current wave of emigration: 1) a massive wage and standard-of-living gap between the United States and its immediate and most populous neighbor, and 2) the increasing demand for cheap labor in the United States.
Stressing that these immigrants' status as "illegal" begs the whole question of whether the laws on the books are adequate or just. They just create a whole class of criminals out of people who come here to work, and the latter has always been the driving force in immigration throughout our history.
But the nativists don't care. They like simple solutions. It's easier to blame the poverty-stricken pawns in this economic game, and take their anger out on them, than to deal with the core problems. What they're interested in is a scapegoat. After all, that's what they do.
Constantly shouting "illegals!" furthers the nativists' aims by separating these people from the rest of us: they're non-citizens, and thus by extension almost non-entities. Perhaps even non-human.
That certainly seems to be the line of thinking adopted by at least one right-wing blogger (wouldn't you know it, another of those "reformed liberals" who now claims that he and his "Red State" kind represent the real America). In a post decrying those "illegal aliens," he compared them to rats:
We can learn from Buffalo, New York. Now in Buffalo the rat problem in the city was a huge one. Exterminators could not handle the problem. But then in 2001 the city mandated that everyone would have to begin using special anti-rat garbage totes that the rats could not open. With no way to get to the garbage, the rats left Buffalo. Now, they went to the suburbs and now the suburbs are fighting them. But it is no longer a problem for the people of Buffalo, New York. Here is how to do the same with our problem:
1) No services.
Absolutely no services of any kind for those who cannot prove they are in the country legally. Nothing but emergency medical care. Without all the social services, medical and other services provided for them, the illegals will find life here less attractive.
2) No schools.
Absolutely no schooling for anyone who cannot prove they belong here legally.
3) No easy birthright.
Change the law. Now, if you are born here, you are a citizen. I say, if you cannot prove that you were born here and that your mother was here legally at the time, then your citizenship is that of the mother and not of the USA.
4) No legal status. No drivers licenses. No bank accounts. No ability to sue a citizen. No legal standing for anyone who is in this country illegally.
5) No free lunch for "The Man".
Make it a criminal offense (and enforce it if it is already on the books) to hire an illegal alien, or to rent a dwelling place to him, or to sell him a home knowing that he intends to live there. Make employers provide documentation for all of their workers. You put the onus on "The Man" and it suddenly becomes less appealing to take advantage of the illegals.
THE RATS WILL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE
Anyone familiar with eliminationist rhetoric recognizes this motif: compare the object of elimination with vermin, and then describe the steps you need to take to "exterminate" them.
Indeed, the "rats" comparison has a particularly ugly history: it was, after all, one of the most effective pieces of imagery in film created by Nazi propagandists in drumming up hatred of Jews, as Richard Webster explained:
The film Der Ewige Jude, which formed part of a propaganda programme designed to justify to the German people the deportations of Jews which were already taking place, included a powerful montage sequence in which Jews were compared to rats. In the words of the commentary, 'rats ... have followed men like parasites from the very beginning … They are cunning, cowardly and fierce, and usually appear in large packs. In the animal world they represent the element of subterranean destruction.' Having noted that rats spread disease and destruction, the commentary suggested that they occupied a position 'not dissimilar to the place that Jews have among men'. At this point in the film, footage of rats squirming through sewers is followed first by the image of a rat crawling up through a drain-cover into the street and then by shots of Jewish people crowded together in ghettos.
In the Security Service report on the film, the comparison of the Jewish people to rats was held to be 'particularly impressive'.
There is, of course, nothing intrinsically anti-semitic (or racist) about the image of the rat. However, presenting images of Jews as unclean insects or rodents was perhaps the most effective way not only of arousing and confirming anti-semitic hatred but of directly inciting physical violence by stirring some of people's deepest fears and anxieties. The same idea was used in 'instant' propaganda exercises to prepare for mass murder. According to one account, peasants recruited by the Germans in occupied countries in order to help in mass murders were given an intensive training course which lasted only a few hours, and which consisted in the study of pictures representing Jews as small repulsive beasts (Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1949, p. 54)
It also has a history of use in America, particularly in immigration and race debates. Recall, for instance, that James Phelan, a U.S. Senator from California, made nearly identical attacks upon Japanese immigrants. Phelan was urging the passage of immigration restrictions and "alien land laws" that stripped immigrants of the right to own land, and whipping up fears that the West Coast would (thanks to those evil "picture brides" and their progeny) soon be overrun by "yellow people," when he explained it thus:
The rats are in the granary. They have gotten in under the door and they are breeding with alarming rapidity. We must get rid of them or lose the granary.
It's also been used in recent years to demonize gays and lesbians.
Fortunately, the blogger in question seems to be extremely obscure, with limited influence. But it's interesting to see the "vermin" motif popping up increasingly in discussions of illegal immigration, particularly paired with discussions of rounding up and deporting all illegal aliens.
After all, it's not just obscure bloggers doing this. It includes guys like Michael Savage, who claims millions of listeners.
Likewise, you're hearing a lot of talk about rounding up and deporting all illegal aliens. But you don't hear any of them telling us how they intend to achieve this --despite the fact that we're talking about 11 million people and, without question, one of the pillars of an economy increasingly built on cheap labor.
You can hear this not just from organizations like VDare -- rated a "hate group" by the SPLC but endorsed by Michelle Malkin and many others -- but also from people with real influence and power, like Newt Gingrich and James Sensenbrenner.
Kinda puts that news a few weeks ago about Halliburton building mass detention centers to cope with an "immigration emergency" in perspective, doesn't it?
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/04/reconquista.html
by David Neiwert
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Those mass marches are having their effect: They're scaring the crap out of the nativists.
And they're fighting back in the usual, expected fashion ... by lying and making ugly but empty threats.
At least, we hope they're empty. Because what they're advocating, increasingly, is eliminating all 11 million illegal aliens in the United States. How they'll achieve that is something, however, they leave to our imaginations.
Recently a powerful Arizona legislator named Russell Pearce, a Republican from Mesa, recently uttered the following in response to the marches:
They're illegal and they have no right to be marching down our streets. They have no constitutional rights. They don't have First-, Fourth-, Sixth amendment rights. They're here illegally and they chose to be here illegally.
Pearce heads the state's House appropriations panel, has served as a judge, and was for many years a law-enforcement officer. And he really believes this?
As Blogs for Arizona explains, illegal aliens in fact have all kinds of rights under the constitution, including due-process rights, free-speech rights, search-and-seizure rights, and criminal-justice rights.
Of course, we hear the word "illegal" all the time in the nativists' arguments. "What part of 'illegal' don't you understand?" is one of the Minutemen's favorite T-shirt slogans.
To which the appropriate response is: "What part of 'bad law' don't you understand?"
The bottom line in the immigration debate is that current immigration law -- as well as the proposals being floated by the Tancredo wing of the Republican Party (including James Sensenbrenner) -- is inadequate for dealing with the realities forced on us by economic forces which no amount of border fence and no mass expulsions will overcome. As I explained before, there are two forces driving the current wave of emigration: 1) a massive wage and standard-of-living gap between the United States and its immediate and most populous neighbor, and 2) the increasing demand for cheap labor in the United States.
Stressing that these immigrants' status as "illegal" begs the whole question of whether the laws on the books are adequate or just. They just create a whole class of criminals out of people who come here to work, and the latter has always been the driving force in immigration throughout our history.
But the nativists don't care. They like simple solutions. It's easier to blame the poverty-stricken pawns in this economic game, and take their anger out on them, than to deal with the core problems. What they're interested in is a scapegoat. After all, that's what they do.
Constantly shouting "illegals!" furthers the nativists' aims by separating these people from the rest of us: they're non-citizens, and thus by extension almost non-entities. Perhaps even non-human.
That certainly seems to be the line of thinking adopted by at least one right-wing blogger (wouldn't you know it, another of those "reformed liberals" who now claims that he and his "Red State" kind represent the real America). In a post decrying those "illegal aliens," he compared them to rats:
We can learn from Buffalo, New York. Now in Buffalo the rat problem in the city was a huge one. Exterminators could not handle the problem. But then in 2001 the city mandated that everyone would have to begin using special anti-rat garbage totes that the rats could not open. With no way to get to the garbage, the rats left Buffalo. Now, they went to the suburbs and now the suburbs are fighting them. But it is no longer a problem for the people of Buffalo, New York. Here is how to do the same with our problem:
1) No services.
Absolutely no services of any kind for those who cannot prove they are in the country legally. Nothing but emergency medical care. Without all the social services, medical and other services provided for them, the illegals will find life here less attractive.
2) No schools.
Absolutely no schooling for anyone who cannot prove they belong here legally.
3) No easy birthright.
Change the law. Now, if you are born here, you are a citizen. I say, if you cannot prove that you were born here and that your mother was here legally at the time, then your citizenship is that of the mother and not of the USA.
4) No legal status. No drivers licenses. No bank accounts. No ability to sue a citizen. No legal standing for anyone who is in this country illegally.
5) No free lunch for "The Man".
Make it a criminal offense (and enforce it if it is already on the books) to hire an illegal alien, or to rent a dwelling place to him, or to sell him a home knowing that he intends to live there. Make employers provide documentation for all of their workers. You put the onus on "The Man" and it suddenly becomes less appealing to take advantage of the illegals.
THE RATS WILL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE
Anyone familiar with eliminationist rhetoric recognizes this motif: compare the object of elimination with vermin, and then describe the steps you need to take to "exterminate" them.
Indeed, the "rats" comparison has a particularly ugly history: it was, after all, one of the most effective pieces of imagery in film created by Nazi propagandists in drumming up hatred of Jews, as Richard Webster explained:
The film Der Ewige Jude, which formed part of a propaganda programme designed to justify to the German people the deportations of Jews which were already taking place, included a powerful montage sequence in which Jews were compared to rats. In the words of the commentary, 'rats ... have followed men like parasites from the very beginning … They are cunning, cowardly and fierce, and usually appear in large packs. In the animal world they represent the element of subterranean destruction.' Having noted that rats spread disease and destruction, the commentary suggested that they occupied a position 'not dissimilar to the place that Jews have among men'. At this point in the film, footage of rats squirming through sewers is followed first by the image of a rat crawling up through a drain-cover into the street and then by shots of Jewish people crowded together in ghettos.
In the Security Service report on the film, the comparison of the Jewish people to rats was held to be 'particularly impressive'.
There is, of course, nothing intrinsically anti-semitic (or racist) about the image of the rat. However, presenting images of Jews as unclean insects or rodents was perhaps the most effective way not only of arousing and confirming anti-semitic hatred but of directly inciting physical violence by stirring some of people's deepest fears and anxieties. The same idea was used in 'instant' propaganda exercises to prepare for mass murder. According to one account, peasants recruited by the Germans in occupied countries in order to help in mass murders were given an intensive training course which lasted only a few hours, and which consisted in the study of pictures representing Jews as small repulsive beasts (Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1949, p. 54)
It also has a history of use in America, particularly in immigration and race debates. Recall, for instance, that James Phelan, a U.S. Senator from California, made nearly identical attacks upon Japanese immigrants. Phelan was urging the passage of immigration restrictions and "alien land laws" that stripped immigrants of the right to own land, and whipping up fears that the West Coast would (thanks to those evil "picture brides" and their progeny) soon be overrun by "yellow people," when he explained it thus:
The rats are in the granary. They have gotten in under the door and they are breeding with alarming rapidity. We must get rid of them or lose the granary.
It's also been used in recent years to demonize gays and lesbians.
Fortunately, the blogger in question seems to be extremely obscure, with limited influence. But it's interesting to see the "vermin" motif popping up increasingly in discussions of illegal immigration, particularly paired with discussions of rounding up and deporting all illegal aliens.
After all, it's not just obscure bloggers doing this. It includes guys like Michael Savage, who claims millions of listeners.
Likewise, you're hearing a lot of talk about rounding up and deporting all illegal aliens. But you don't hear any of them telling us how they intend to achieve this --despite the fact that we're talking about 11 million people and, without question, one of the pillars of an economy increasingly built on cheap labor.
You can hear this not just from organizations like VDare -- rated a "hate group" by the SPLC but endorsed by Michelle Malkin and many others -- but also from people with real influence and power, like Newt Gingrich and James Sensenbrenner.
Kinda puts that news a few weeks ago about Halliburton building mass detention centers to cope with an "immigration emergency" in perspective, doesn't it?
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:40 pm
QUOTE
The real Minutemen
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
Monday, May 08, 2006
Reporters who bother to spend time with the Minutemen and dig a little deeper are finding that the organization isn't as forthright as it seems.
In Washington state, for instance, Minuteman organizers insist they're only concerned about border security. But that doesn't explain why one of their supporters is running an initiative that would strip illegal immigrants of the ability to obtain government benefits, including welfare and health care.
Down in Phoenix, an investigative TV crew from KPHO went undercover and discovered that, when the cameras go off, the Minutemen are talking a much different ball game than their preferred public image of upstanding, concerned citizens:
These are anti-immigration vigilantes, taking action, mobilizing in the Arizona desert, driven by a conviction.
Pineapple 6 says, "These f___ing Mexicans. They will kill you. They don't give a f__k."
That Mexican immigrants are public enemy number one.
Fred Puckett says, "And once you shoot a couple of these son of a b@#$%es, they'll think twice."
Even worse are the spinoff groups that piggyback off the Minuteman propaganda and then draw the more radical actors into their ranks:
Another vigilante group - expelled from this operation - was operating nearby.
Pineapple 6 says, "They're carrying automatic weapons and they're chasing guys down and tracking them.. then they tie them up."
The next day, we set out to find the so-called "Rogue Minutemen."
Fred Puckett says, "Hi guys. I'm Fred Puckett.. Minuteman of One."
Puckett calls his group "Minuteman of One."
Puckett says, "We don't have no by-laws.. we don't have nothin'. We go out in two-man teams and we hit them like we did 40-years ago in Vietnam."
Members of Minuteman of One have a controversial M-O. They carry assault rifles when they're out on patrol, they don't hesitate to follow migrants or smugglers and they've been known to "confiscate" food, water and the luggage they come across.
Puckett says, "We believe our country is being destroyed from the inside. Anything south of I-10 is a third world nation."
The KPHO team last year did the same thing and found similar results.
Of course, this is standard M.O. for all of the far right's attemps to mainstream itself. In the 1990s, when I attended militia-organizing meetings, the leaders were adamant that all they were interested in was civic-minded protection of citizens' rights, and that they were nothing more than a neighborhood watch group.
Two years later, I watched in a federal courtroom as those same men were revealed on FBI videotape building pipe bombs and talking about blowing up various targets, including a local railroad tunnel and the home of a local reporter.
Fortunately, not every TV reporter these days is content to just let them blow smoke, though most are (see, e.g., Lou Dobbs). They're fewer and farther between, but the KPHO team deserves a big round of applause.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
Monday, May 08, 2006
Reporters who bother to spend time with the Minutemen and dig a little deeper are finding that the organization isn't as forthright as it seems.
In Washington state, for instance, Minuteman organizers insist they're only concerned about border security. But that doesn't explain why one of their supporters is running an initiative that would strip illegal immigrants of the ability to obtain government benefits, including welfare and health care.
Down in Phoenix, an investigative TV crew from KPHO went undercover and discovered that, when the cameras go off, the Minutemen are talking a much different ball game than their preferred public image of upstanding, concerned citizens:
These are anti-immigration vigilantes, taking action, mobilizing in the Arizona desert, driven by a conviction.
Pineapple 6 says, "These f___ing Mexicans. They will kill you. They don't give a f__k."
That Mexican immigrants are public enemy number one.
Fred Puckett says, "And once you shoot a couple of these son of a b@#$%es, they'll think twice."
Even worse are the spinoff groups that piggyback off the Minuteman propaganda and then draw the more radical actors into their ranks:
Another vigilante group - expelled from this operation - was operating nearby.
Pineapple 6 says, "They're carrying automatic weapons and they're chasing guys down and tracking them.. then they tie them up."
The next day, we set out to find the so-called "Rogue Minutemen."
Fred Puckett says, "Hi guys. I'm Fred Puckett.. Minuteman of One."
Puckett calls his group "Minuteman of One."
Puckett says, "We don't have no by-laws.. we don't have nothin'. We go out in two-man teams and we hit them like we did 40-years ago in Vietnam."
Members of Minuteman of One have a controversial M-O. They carry assault rifles when they're out on patrol, they don't hesitate to follow migrants or smugglers and they've been known to "confiscate" food, water and the luggage they come across.
Puckett says, "We believe our country is being destroyed from the inside. Anything south of I-10 is a third world nation."
The KPHO team last year did the same thing and found similar results.
Of course, this is standard M.O. for all of the far right's attemps to mainstream itself. In the 1990s, when I attended militia-organizing meetings, the leaders were adamant that all they were interested in was civic-minded protection of citizens' rights, and that they were nothing more than a neighborhood watch group.
Two years later, I watched in a federal courtroom as those same men were revealed on FBI videotape building pipe bombs and talking about blowing up various targets, including a local railroad tunnel and the home of a local reporter.
Fortunately, not every TV reporter these days is content to just let them blow smoke, though most are (see, e.g., Lou Dobbs). They're fewer and farther between, but the KPHO team deserves a big round of applause.
Bush administration is still protecting fascist Mexico.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:41 pm
QUOTE
NAFTA's Failure and the Increasingly Desperate Mexican Economy
What Bush's Speech on Immigration Will Miss
By JEFF FAUX
http://www.counterpunch.org/faux05152006.html
May 15, 2006
In his speech tonight, President Bush will likely once again ignore the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the center of the immigration debate: Mexico, the source of over three-quarters of illegal immigrants in America.
Like the rest of Washington, Mr. Bush talks as if the problem of illegal immigration can be solved within the borders of this country. More border guards might make crossing the frontier more difficult, and amnesty and guest worker programs might redefine the meaning of "legal," but they will not stop--and may well accelerate--the growing tide of people driven north by poverty and the lack of job opportunities at home.
Some 40% of the more than 100 million people still living in Mexico say they would come to the United States if they had the opportunity, which can be bought for the roughly $2,500 or so it costs for a "coyote" to smuggle them across the border. Last year, at least 400 died in the attempt.
This was not supposed to happen. Thirteen years ago, when illegal immigration from Mexico over a less-protected border was half of what it is today, we were assured that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would transform Mexico into a prosperous middle-class society. "There will be less illegal immigration," promised President Bill Clinton, "because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home." Mexican president Carlos Salinas told Americans it was a choice between getting Mexican tomatoes or tomato-pickers.
But NAFTA did not deliver. Mexico has grown too slowly to create enough jobs for its people, and the benefits of trade have largely gone to the wealthy, making it one of the most unequal societies in Latin America. Moreover, the agreement flooded Mexico with highly subsidized U.S. and Canadian grain, driving between 1 and 2 million Mexican farmers off the land and adding to the supply of desperate Mexicans looking for work.
NAFTA stands in vivid contrast to the experience of the economic integration of Western Europe, which actually provided for free migration among the participating nations. Originally there was great fear that Germany, France, and the other rich economies would be flooded with workers from Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece. To avoid this, the European community provided funds for economic development programs, which stimulated job growth in the poorer nations, and insisted on domestic reforms that assured that the economic growth would be broadly shared. The result was that the people of the poorer nations stayed home and prospered.
It is time for the leaders on this continent to acknowledge that NAFTA has not fulfilled its promises and go back to the drawing boards. We need a new deal among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It should include a transfer of funds to Mexico for infrastructure, education, and other public investments aimed at creating jobs and raising wages there. In exchange, Mexican leaders would have to agree on enforceable protections for human rights, free collective bargaining, minimum wages, and other policies to promote the equitable sharing of wealth.
Such a new deal with Mexico would not be easy. But it would be far better to address the source of the problem directly than continue with the illusion that it can be solved simply by new immigration laws and ever-taller fences. So long as the Mexican economy cannot provide its people with jobs, they will keep coming.
Jeff Faux was founding president and now distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
What Bush's Speech on Immigration Will Miss
By JEFF FAUX
http://www.counterpunch.org/faux05152006.html
May 15, 2006
In his speech tonight, President Bush will likely once again ignore the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the center of the immigration debate: Mexico, the source of over three-quarters of illegal immigrants in America.
Like the rest of Washington, Mr. Bush talks as if the problem of illegal immigration can be solved within the borders of this country. More border guards might make crossing the frontier more difficult, and amnesty and guest worker programs might redefine the meaning of "legal," but they will not stop--and may well accelerate--the growing tide of people driven north by poverty and the lack of job opportunities at home.
Some 40% of the more than 100 million people still living in Mexico say they would come to the United States if they had the opportunity, which can be bought for the roughly $2,500 or so it costs for a "coyote" to smuggle them across the border. Last year, at least 400 died in the attempt.
This was not supposed to happen. Thirteen years ago, when illegal immigration from Mexico over a less-protected border was half of what it is today, we were assured that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would transform Mexico into a prosperous middle-class society. "There will be less illegal immigration," promised President Bill Clinton, "because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home." Mexican president Carlos Salinas told Americans it was a choice between getting Mexican tomatoes or tomato-pickers.
But NAFTA did not deliver. Mexico has grown too slowly to create enough jobs for its people, and the benefits of trade have largely gone to the wealthy, making it one of the most unequal societies in Latin America. Moreover, the agreement flooded Mexico with highly subsidized U.S. and Canadian grain, driving between 1 and 2 million Mexican farmers off the land and adding to the supply of desperate Mexicans looking for work.
NAFTA stands in vivid contrast to the experience of the economic integration of Western Europe, which actually provided for free migration among the participating nations. Originally there was great fear that Germany, France, and the other rich economies would be flooded with workers from Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece. To avoid this, the European community provided funds for economic development programs, which stimulated job growth in the poorer nations, and insisted on domestic reforms that assured that the economic growth would be broadly shared. The result was that the people of the poorer nations stayed home and prospered.
It is time for the leaders on this continent to acknowledge that NAFTA has not fulfilled its promises and go back to the drawing boards. We need a new deal among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It should include a transfer of funds to Mexico for infrastructure, education, and other public investments aimed at creating jobs and raising wages there. In exchange, Mexican leaders would have to agree on enforceable protections for human rights, free collective bargaining, minimum wages, and other policies to promote the equitable sharing of wealth.
Such a new deal with Mexico would not be easy. But it would be far better to address the source of the problem directly than continue with the illusion that it can be solved simply by new immigration laws and ever-taller fences. So long as the Mexican economy cannot provide its people with jobs, they will keep coming.
Jeff Faux was founding president and now distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:41 pm
The Aztland conspiracy theory to big among White-Supremacists. The theory alleges that Mexico will try to reclaim parts of the Southwest that used to be Mexico. This theory is rarely espoused by Latinos, but is widely espoused by right-wing groups. In this thread we have seen the paramilitary group called the Minutemen gradually get recognition from the White House and media with the Bush Administration even sending border guards to reinforce their efforts and now more new military troops. While the press reports on these events, it doesn't do any background stories on who the Minutemen are and their history.
This quote below illustrates how right-wing white supremacists ideology is creeping into the media's immigration discussion. The net effect is to gradually legitimize paramilitary groups and their role.
QUOTE
Mainstreaming extremism
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
You know, I think I was just talking about how the anti-immigration movement is increasingly drawing its material from the white-supremacist right ...
From Liberal Oasis:
CNN Cites White Supremacist Group As Source
Today on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," CNN ran a graphic sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group deemed to have a "white supremacy" ideology according to the Anti-Defamation League.
During a piece about illegal immigrants in Utah, reporter Casey Wian said, "Utah is also part of the territory some militant Latino activists refer to as Aztlan, the portion of the southwest United States they claim rightfully belongs to Mexico."
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
You know, I think I was just talking about how the anti-immigration movement is increasingly drawing its material from the white-supremacist right ...
From Liberal Oasis:
CNN Cites White Supremacist Group As Source
Today on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," CNN ran a graphic sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group deemed to have a "white supremacy" ideology according to the Anti-Defamation League.
During a piece about illegal immigrants in Utah, reporter Casey Wian said, "Utah is also part of the territory some militant Latino activists refer to as Aztlan, the portion of the southwest United States they claim rightfully belongs to Mexico."
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:42 pm
QUOTE
The Year In Hate
A 5% annual increase in hate groups in 2005 caps a remarkable rise of 33% over the five-year period that began in 2000.
by Mark Potok
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=627
Fueled by belligerent tactics and publicity stunts, the number of hate groups operating in the United States rose from 762 in 2004 to 803 last year, capping an increase of fully 33% over the five years since 2000.
The expansion of hate groups last year, documented by the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, seemed to be helped along by aggressive maneuvers that landed them on front pages and in national news broadcasts. The National Socialist Movement, for instance, repeatedly made national news with provocative attempts to march through black, inner-city neighborhoods. Other groups rallied with increasing fervor and frequency, and even undertook sure-to-infuriate campaigns like "Operation Schoolyard," an attempt in the 2004-2005 school year to distribute 100,000 free racist music CDs to schoolchildren. One anti-gay group, the Westboro Baptist Church, went so far as to picket the funerals of soldiers, saying God was punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.
There were many other reasons for the continuing rise as well. Hispanic immigration, in particular, may have been the single most important factor in recent years, fueling a national debate and giving hate groups an issue with real resonance. The war in Iraq, seen by many hate groups as a struggle America was forced into by Jews, was another. Racist music and concerts continued to attract new young people into the movement. A growing Internet presence also helped groups' propaganda to flourish; there were 524 hate sites counted in 2005, up 12% from 468 in 2004.
"Despite a large number of arrests and the collapse of several leading neo-Nazi groups, the movement continues to grow," said Joe Roy, chief investigator of the Intelligence Project. "It's a Hydra with a thousand different heads."
Here's a more detailed look at several sectors of the hate movement:
NEO-NAZIS Overall, the number of neo-Nazi groups in America barely changed, dropping by one to 157. But that masked some major changes on the scene. The National Alliance, just a few years ago the leading hate group in America, fell from 59 chapters in 2004 to 22 last year -- a 63% decrease. That precipitous drop reflected an exodus of members as Alliance leaders continued to attract movement criticism in a series of scandals that have sapped their credibility. "I hope you die miserable and broke," one former member wrote the Alliance bosses. "The days of drinking and going to strip clubs on members' dues money are over."
Many former Alliance members have gone to relatively new groups like White Revolution, formed in 2002, and National Vanguard, which was started by a former Alliance leader last year. But White Revolution has fizzled, and National Vanguard, after a relatively strong start, this year lost its highly active Tampa and Denver units, which spun off as their own new group. At the same time, two groups that once were neo-Nazi heavyweights, Aryan Nations and the Creativity Movement (formerly World Church of the Creator), were reduced to mere remnants.
The real beneficiary of the demise of the National Alliance has been the National Socialist Movement (see Nazis Rising), which increased its chapters by 44% last year, from 41 in 2004 to 59 last year. This was largely due to the attention it got as a result of its antagonistic protests, something that brought both publicity and new members. It was also a result of the energy of anarchist-turned-Nazi Bill White, a provocative NSM leader who claims to have $2 million in cash and real estate. All in all, it was a spectacular rise for a group almost unheard of just a few years ago.
KU KLUX KLAN Overall, the number of Klan groups increased from 162 in 2004 to 179 last year. The two largest groups, the Imperial Klans of America and the Brotherhood of Klans, both continued to expand. Three new groups also appeared on the scene. One, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was largely formed by a faction that left the Mystic Knights, while another, the Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, replaced the now-defunct Southern White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. A third new group, the Fraternal Knights, also was formed.
Two older Klan groups disappeared. Both the Orion Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most active Klan group in America in the late 1990s, showed no activity at all in 2005.
RACIST SKINHEADS New life seemed to animate the Skinhead scene last year, as the number of groups rose from 48 in 2004 to 56. At the same time, a growing number of skins -- people who are typically highly migratory and poor organized -- made alliances with larger and more traditional neo-Nazi organizations. The key event of the year was probably October's Blood & Honour USA Council (see Snapshot), where more than a dozen groups formed an alliance against the powerful Hammerskin group and chose the National Alliance as its "political outlet."
The racist music scene, which is largely dominated by Skinhead groups, also underwent some major changes last year. After the collapse of Panzerfaust Records and the near-crippling of powerhouse Resistance Records (owned by the National Alliance), a number of smaller labels (see White Noise) began scrambling for pieces of the lucrative business. At this point, the front-runners seem to be Free Your Mind Productions, ISD Records, Final Stand Records and Condemned Records.
NEO-CONFEDERATES The principal neo-Confederate group, the League of the South (LOS), did not appear to do well last year. Its leaders are involved in various disputes with former members, including a group of "kinists" who are advocating the break-up of America into racially homogenous mini-states and another group that departed to form a new rival, the Confederate Alliance. And LOS' long-awaited "Southern National Congress," finally held this March in Georgia after two failed attempts, attracted fewer than 50 people and was marred by infighting.
A strategy session was held last June to try to refocus the LOS, but did little more than create a mission statement and suggest more political activism.
Meanwhile, the struggle to control the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a Southern heritage group that is not listed as a hate group but has been wracked by an internal civil war between moderates and racial extremists, continued (see Into the Wild). Under its new leader, extremists have solidified their hold on the organization even as some 9,000 people, a quarter of the SCV's members, quit the group.
White supremacists last year also lost a key thinker when Sam Francis died unexpectedly in February. Francis edited the Citizens Informer, the periodical of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, along with writing for several other key racist publications. More than a dozen of the leading white supremacist and anti-Semitic thinkers in America attended his funeral in Tennessee.
Intelligence Report
Spring 2006
A 5% annual increase in hate groups in 2005 caps a remarkable rise of 33% over the five-year period that began in 2000.
by Mark Potok
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=627
Fueled by belligerent tactics and publicity stunts, the number of hate groups operating in the United States rose from 762 in 2004 to 803 last year, capping an increase of fully 33% over the five years since 2000.
The expansion of hate groups last year, documented by the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, seemed to be helped along by aggressive maneuvers that landed them on front pages and in national news broadcasts. The National Socialist Movement, for instance, repeatedly made national news with provocative attempts to march through black, inner-city neighborhoods. Other groups rallied with increasing fervor and frequency, and even undertook sure-to-infuriate campaigns like "Operation Schoolyard," an attempt in the 2004-2005 school year to distribute 100,000 free racist music CDs to schoolchildren. One anti-gay group, the Westboro Baptist Church, went so far as to picket the funerals of soldiers, saying God was punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.
There were many other reasons for the continuing rise as well. Hispanic immigration, in particular, may have been the single most important factor in recent years, fueling a national debate and giving hate groups an issue with real resonance. The war in Iraq, seen by many hate groups as a struggle America was forced into by Jews, was another. Racist music and concerts continued to attract new young people into the movement. A growing Internet presence also helped groups' propaganda to flourish; there were 524 hate sites counted in 2005, up 12% from 468 in 2004.
"Despite a large number of arrests and the collapse of several leading neo-Nazi groups, the movement continues to grow," said Joe Roy, chief investigator of the Intelligence Project. "It's a Hydra with a thousand different heads."
Here's a more detailed look at several sectors of the hate movement:
NEO-NAZIS Overall, the number of neo-Nazi groups in America barely changed, dropping by one to 157. But that masked some major changes on the scene. The National Alliance, just a few years ago the leading hate group in America, fell from 59 chapters in 2004 to 22 last year -- a 63% decrease. That precipitous drop reflected an exodus of members as Alliance leaders continued to attract movement criticism in a series of scandals that have sapped their credibility. "I hope you die miserable and broke," one former member wrote the Alliance bosses. "The days of drinking and going to strip clubs on members' dues money are over."
Many former Alliance members have gone to relatively new groups like White Revolution, formed in 2002, and National Vanguard, which was started by a former Alliance leader last year. But White Revolution has fizzled, and National Vanguard, after a relatively strong start, this year lost its highly active Tampa and Denver units, which spun off as their own new group. At the same time, two groups that once were neo-Nazi heavyweights, Aryan Nations and the Creativity Movement (formerly World Church of the Creator), were reduced to mere remnants.
The real beneficiary of the demise of the National Alliance has been the National Socialist Movement (see Nazis Rising), which increased its chapters by 44% last year, from 41 in 2004 to 59 last year. This was largely due to the attention it got as a result of its antagonistic protests, something that brought both publicity and new members. It was also a result of the energy of anarchist-turned-Nazi Bill White, a provocative NSM leader who claims to have $2 million in cash and real estate. All in all, it was a spectacular rise for a group almost unheard of just a few years ago.
KU KLUX KLAN Overall, the number of Klan groups increased from 162 in 2004 to 179 last year. The two largest groups, the Imperial Klans of America and the Brotherhood of Klans, both continued to expand. Three new groups also appeared on the scene. One, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was largely formed by a faction that left the Mystic Knights, while another, the Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, replaced the now-defunct Southern White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. A third new group, the Fraternal Knights, also was formed.
Two older Klan groups disappeared. Both the Orion Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most active Klan group in America in the late 1990s, showed no activity at all in 2005.
RACIST SKINHEADS New life seemed to animate the Skinhead scene last year, as the number of groups rose from 48 in 2004 to 56. At the same time, a growing number of skins -- people who are typically highly migratory and poor organized -- made alliances with larger and more traditional neo-Nazi organizations. The key event of the year was probably October's Blood & Honour USA Council (see Snapshot), where more than a dozen groups formed an alliance against the powerful Hammerskin group and chose the National Alliance as its "political outlet."
The racist music scene, which is largely dominated by Skinhead groups, also underwent some major changes last year. After the collapse of Panzerfaust Records and the near-crippling of powerhouse Resistance Records (owned by the National Alliance), a number of smaller labels (see White Noise) began scrambling for pieces of the lucrative business. At this point, the front-runners seem to be Free Your Mind Productions, ISD Records, Final Stand Records and Condemned Records.
NEO-CONFEDERATES The principal neo-Confederate group, the League of the South (LOS), did not appear to do well last year. Its leaders are involved in various disputes with former members, including a group of "kinists" who are advocating the break-up of America into racially homogenous mini-states and another group that departed to form a new rival, the Confederate Alliance. And LOS' long-awaited "Southern National Congress," finally held this March in Georgia after two failed attempts, attracted fewer than 50 people and was marred by infighting.
A strategy session was held last June to try to refocus the LOS, but did little more than create a mission statement and suggest more political activism.
Meanwhile, the struggle to control the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a Southern heritage group that is not listed as a hate group but has been wracked by an internal civil war between moderates and racial extremists, continued (see Into the Wild). Under its new leader, extremists have solidified their hold on the organization even as some 9,000 people, a quarter of the SCV's members, quit the group.
White supremacists last year also lost a key thinker when Sam Francis died unexpectedly in February. Francis edited the Citizens Informer, the periodical of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, along with writing for several other key racist publications. More than a dozen of the leading white supremacist and anti-Semitic thinkers in America attended his funeral in Tennessee.
Intelligence Report
Spring 2006
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:43 pm
Paramilitary groups are used by right-wing fascists to funnel money to their supporters; in this case, U.S government money is passed thur the Department of Homeland Security to Blackwater.
QUOTE
http://www.counterpunch.org/maass06022006.html
"A Mercenary Army"
By ALAN MAASS
June 2, 2006
Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist who reports frequently for the Nation magazine and the Pacifica radio program Democracy Now! His investigations have exposed the role of the Blackwater USA security firm in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
MAASS: WHAT IS Blackwater USA?
Scahill: BLACKWATER USA is the most rapidly growing and, arguably, the most successful mercenary firm in the world today.
A few years ago, no one had ever heard of it. The company was founded by a very right-wing fundamentalist Christian and former Navy SEAL by the name of Erik Prince. Prince comes from a family that was a major bankroller of far-right-wing causes. His father was a close friend of Gary Bauer and helped him to found the Family Research Council.
Blackwater started in the late 1990s as a firm that was going to train law enforcement, and supplement the work of the U.S. military. When the Bush administration took power and then September 11 happened, the company absolutely exploded--and turned into an all-out mercenary firm.
Blackwater was awarded the prize contract in Iraq to provide security for the original head of the U.S. occupation, Paul Bremer. At the time, it was a $21 million contract, but more important than the money was the prestige that came with being the guys who were guarding the head of the U.S. occupation.
Then in March 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and killed in the Iraqi city of Falluja, with two of their bodies hung from a bridge. That really put Blackwater on the map.
The company viewed this as a great moment to profit. The day after those guys were killed, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a very powerful lobbying and p.r. firm. Now, it's a disgraced firm, but at the time, it was very powerful--it had been set up and staffed by former senior aides to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
And that really began a massive war profiteering and disaster profiteering boom for Blackwater--not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but here at home as well.
Maass: YOU WERE probably the first journalist to discover that Blackwater was on the scene in New Orleans, in the days right after Hurricane Katrina struck. How did you come across them?
Scahill: BLACKWATER'S MEN actually beat the federal government, FEMA, the Red Cross and all these organizations to the hurricane zone.
In fact, I interviewed Cofer Black--the former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, and now one of the top people at Blackwater--at a mercenary conference, and he told me that they sent a helicopter and a bunch of their guys down there without any contracts at first. Clearly, they saw this as an opportunity to really cash in on the disaster of Katrina.
Within days of their guys deploying down there, Blackwater was handed a very lucrative $409,000 contract--literally to guard a morgue in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fourteen guys, four vehicles, for 22 days--and they were paid $409,000.
That contract, which was not open to public bids, was awarded to Blackwater, and it would kick off a contract spree that in just four months would amount to over $30 million for Blackwater.
They were billing the federal government some $950 per day per man in the hurricane zone. I had Blackwater men who told me that they were getting paid $350 a day, plus a modest per diem. So that's $600 that Blackwater had to play with, above what they were paying their guys.
I came across Blackwater quite by accident. I was in the French Quarter talking to two New York police officers, when this car with no license plates sped up, and these huge mercenary types--wearing all khaki, carrying M4 machine guns, with ammo strapped to every part of their body, wearing sunglasses with the foam strap around the back--got out. And they asked the officers, "Do you know where the rest of the Blackwater guys are?" The police officers said, "Yeah, they're all over the place," and one sort of pointed them in the direction down the street where they needed to go.
Then, an hour later, we saw those guys again, and went up and started talking to them. I don't know for what reason, but they ended up talking to me for an an hour and a half. We had a wide-ranging discussion.
Some of them had been on Paul Bremer's security detail. One guy had gotten back from Iraq two weeks before being deployed in New Orleans. He said, "When they told me I was going to New Orleans, I asked what country that was in."
So these guys who literally had just been in the thick of things in Iraq were now marching around the streets of New Orleans, with automatic weapons. They told me that one of their roles was to stop looters and confront criminals. One of the guys showed me a Louisiana state law enforcement badge and said they'd been deputized.
The reporting that I did down there ended up sparking a congressional demand for an investigation. So the Department of Homeland Security did, in fact, investigate Blackwater, but what came out of that internal investigation was a whitewashing of the situation. Ultimately, the Department of Homeland Security's inspectors general's office defended Blackwater's contract.
MAASS: YOU'VE WRITTEN that the Department of Homeland Security plans to keep its contract with Blackwater for two to five years. What are they supposed to be doing?
Scahill: THAT'S A very good question. We don't know at this point, and one of the reasons that we don't know is that not even members of Congress can see these contracts. We were able to get about four months of Blackwater's contracts, but that's only because of the uproar that was created by the presence of mercenaries on the streets of a U.S. city.
I was just in Washington, meeting with some congresspeople, and one member of Congress told me that she's not even allowed to see any of the contracts in general, but when she is, she has to go into a padded room. She's not allowed to bring in any kind of writing equipment or paper, and she's not allowed to say what she saw in that room after she's viewed the contracts.
That should be a cause of great concern among people, because what little oversight actually did exist in the federal government in this country has really been thrown out the window by this administration.
So the answer to your question is that we don't know what Blackwater is tasked with doing at this very moment. I did have Cofer Black confirm to me that Blackwater's men are still deployed in New Orleans and in the hurricane zone, but he wouldn't say what they were doing.
MAASS: HOW DOES the tens of millions that Blackwater is making compare to what is being spent in New Orleans on school reconstruction or affordable housing?
Scahill: WE REALLY don't know how much Blackwater has been paid. We know that they were paid $30 million for the first four months. Well, now we're nearing the first year anniversary of the hurricane, and we don't have the updated amount of money that they've been paid.
But this is just is just one company. There are scores of private security companies on contract with the federal government. This other company, DynCorp, is itching to get more of the action, offering their guards at $700 per day.
There's very little irony in all that, given that we're talking about a place that has been utterly devastated, and people are being told that we don't have the resources to rebuild their homes, and they're going to have to live somewhere else in the country. Yet they have all the money in the world to pour into guns and mercenaries.
Chris Kromm, who is one of the editors of the really great Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, points out that there are tons of projects that have received basically no money. Among those are education programs, repatriation programs to bring people back into the city, health care, food distribution.
And perhaps most importantly, they still haven't reconstructed the levees to withstand anything more than a Category 2 hurricane, and hurricane season is here.
MAASS: CAN YOU talk how contracts like these are part of the drive toward privatization and the neoliberal agenda?
Scahill: THIS BECOMES very frightening on a number of levels.
On the one hand, you have this happening across the board. For example, this administration is attacking the public school system--de-funding it, and putting resources in the hands of fundamentalist Christian schools instead of bolstering the public school system. You see the Wal-Martization of U.S. society.
And now you have contractors being used all over Iraq and Afghanistan. They are alleged to have been involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib. They have acted with impunity. Not a single contractor has been prosecuted for any crimes committed in Iraq.
So you're left with one of two conclusions. Either they haven't committed any crimes, which I think we have the evidence to show isn't the case. Or no one's paying attention to accountability issues right now.
But it's not just about accountability. What we see happening is the federal budget being pilfered by friends of the administration, and that's what we see in the case of Blackwater, where they're billing $950 a day.
This is a very, very frightening prospect that we face in this country. Bush is talking about sending 6,000 National Guard troops down to the border, and Blackwater is itching to get involved in those operations. They're itching to get involved in Darfur right now.
We have to step back from this and say: Do we want to live in a country that runs a mercenary army. I think that most people, if they were asked if they wanted these kinds of trained killers patrolling their streets and interacting with ordinary folks, would say no. We've seen the consequences of their impunity in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"A Mercenary Army"
By ALAN MAASS
June 2, 2006
Jeremy Scahill is an independent journalist who reports frequently for the Nation magazine and the Pacifica radio program Democracy Now! His investigations have exposed the role of the Blackwater USA security firm in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
MAASS: WHAT IS Blackwater USA?
Scahill: BLACKWATER USA is the most rapidly growing and, arguably, the most successful mercenary firm in the world today.
A few years ago, no one had ever heard of it. The company was founded by a very right-wing fundamentalist Christian and former Navy SEAL by the name of Erik Prince. Prince comes from a family that was a major bankroller of far-right-wing causes. His father was a close friend of Gary Bauer and helped him to found the Family Research Council.
Blackwater started in the late 1990s as a firm that was going to train law enforcement, and supplement the work of the U.S. military. When the Bush administration took power and then September 11 happened, the company absolutely exploded--and turned into an all-out mercenary firm.
Blackwater was awarded the prize contract in Iraq to provide security for the original head of the U.S. occupation, Paul Bremer. At the time, it was a $21 million contract, but more important than the money was the prestige that came with being the guys who were guarding the head of the U.S. occupation.
Then in March 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and killed in the Iraqi city of Falluja, with two of their bodies hung from a bridge. That really put Blackwater on the map.
The company viewed this as a great moment to profit. The day after those guys were killed, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a very powerful lobbying and p.r. firm. Now, it's a disgraced firm, but at the time, it was very powerful--it had been set up and staffed by former senior aides to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
And that really began a massive war profiteering and disaster profiteering boom for Blackwater--not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but here at home as well.
Maass: YOU WERE probably the first journalist to discover that Blackwater was on the scene in New Orleans, in the days right after Hurricane Katrina struck. How did you come across them?
Scahill: BLACKWATER'S MEN actually beat the federal government, FEMA, the Red Cross and all these organizations to the hurricane zone.
In fact, I interviewed Cofer Black--the former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, and now one of the top people at Blackwater--at a mercenary conference, and he told me that they sent a helicopter and a bunch of their guys down there without any contracts at first. Clearly, they saw this as an opportunity to really cash in on the disaster of Katrina.
Within days of their guys deploying down there, Blackwater was handed a very lucrative $409,000 contract--literally to guard a morgue in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fourteen guys, four vehicles, for 22 days--and they were paid $409,000.
That contract, which was not open to public bids, was awarded to Blackwater, and it would kick off a contract spree that in just four months would amount to over $30 million for Blackwater.
They were billing the federal government some $950 per day per man in the hurricane zone. I had Blackwater men who told me that they were getting paid $350 a day, plus a modest per diem. So that's $600 that Blackwater had to play with, above what they were paying their guys.
I came across Blackwater quite by accident. I was in the French Quarter talking to two New York police officers, when this car with no license plates sped up, and these huge mercenary types--wearing all khaki, carrying M4 machine guns, with ammo strapped to every part of their body, wearing sunglasses with the foam strap around the back--got out. And they asked the officers, "Do you know where the rest of the Blackwater guys are?" The police officers said, "Yeah, they're all over the place," and one sort of pointed them in the direction down the street where they needed to go.
Then, an hour later, we saw those guys again, and went up and started talking to them. I don't know for what reason, but they ended up talking to me for an an hour and a half. We had a wide-ranging discussion.
Some of them had been on Paul Bremer's security detail. One guy had gotten back from Iraq two weeks before being deployed in New Orleans. He said, "When they told me I was going to New Orleans, I asked what country that was in."
So these guys who literally had just been in the thick of things in Iraq were now marching around the streets of New Orleans, with automatic weapons. They told me that one of their roles was to stop looters and confront criminals. One of the guys showed me a Louisiana state law enforcement badge and said they'd been deputized.
The reporting that I did down there ended up sparking a congressional demand for an investigation. So the Department of Homeland Security did, in fact, investigate Blackwater, but what came out of that internal investigation was a whitewashing of the situation. Ultimately, the Department of Homeland Security's inspectors general's office defended Blackwater's contract.
MAASS: YOU'VE WRITTEN that the Department of Homeland Security plans to keep its contract with Blackwater for two to five years. What are they supposed to be doing?
Scahill: THAT'S A very good question. We don't know at this point, and one of the reasons that we don't know is that not even members of Congress can see these contracts. We were able to get about four months of Blackwater's contracts, but that's only because of the uproar that was created by the presence of mercenaries on the streets of a U.S. city.
I was just in Washington, meeting with some congresspeople, and one member of Congress told me that she's not even allowed to see any of the contracts in general, but when she is, she has to go into a padded room. She's not allowed to bring in any kind of writing equipment or paper, and she's not allowed to say what she saw in that room after she's viewed the contracts.
That should be a cause of great concern among people, because what little oversight actually did exist in the federal government in this country has really been thrown out the window by this administration.
So the answer to your question is that we don't know what Blackwater is tasked with doing at this very moment. I did have Cofer Black confirm to me that Blackwater's men are still deployed in New Orleans and in the hurricane zone, but he wouldn't say what they were doing.
MAASS: HOW DOES the tens of millions that Blackwater is making compare to what is being spent in New Orleans on school reconstruction or affordable housing?
Scahill: WE REALLY don't know how much Blackwater has been paid. We know that they were paid $30 million for the first four months. Well, now we're nearing the first year anniversary of the hurricane, and we don't have the updated amount of money that they've been paid.
But this is just is just one company. There are scores of private security companies on contract with the federal government. This other company, DynCorp, is itching to get more of the action, offering their guards at $700 per day.
There's very little irony in all that, given that we're talking about a place that has been utterly devastated, and people are being told that we don't have the resources to rebuild their homes, and they're going to have to live somewhere else in the country. Yet they have all the money in the world to pour into guns and mercenaries.
Chris Kromm, who is one of the editors of the really great Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, points out that there are tons of projects that have received basically no money. Among those are education programs, repatriation programs to bring people back into the city, health care, food distribution.
And perhaps most importantly, they still haven't reconstructed the levees to withstand anything more than a Category 2 hurricane, and hurricane season is here.
MAASS: CAN YOU talk how contracts like these are part of the drive toward privatization and the neoliberal agenda?
Scahill: THIS BECOMES very frightening on a number of levels.
On the one hand, you have this happening across the board. For example, this administration is attacking the public school system--de-funding it, and putting resources in the hands of fundamentalist Christian schools instead of bolstering the public school system. You see the Wal-Martization of U.S. society.
And now you have contractors being used all over Iraq and Afghanistan. They are alleged to have been involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib. They have acted with impunity. Not a single contractor has been prosecuted for any crimes committed in Iraq.
So you're left with one of two conclusions. Either they haven't committed any crimes, which I think we have the evidence to show isn't the case. Or no one's paying attention to accountability issues right now.
But it's not just about accountability. What we see happening is the federal budget being pilfered by friends of the administration, and that's what we see in the case of Blackwater, where they're billing $950 a day.
This is a very, very frightening prospect that we face in this country. Bush is talking about sending 6,000 National Guard troops down to the border, and Blackwater is itching to get involved in those operations. They're itching to get involved in Darfur right now.
We have to step back from this and say: Do we want to live in a country that runs a mercenary army. I think that most people, if they were asked if they wanted these kinds of trained killers patrolling their streets and interacting with ordinary folks, would say no. We've seen the consequences of their impunity in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mexico is a fascist state and exports its poverty to America in the form of illegal aliens. So what is America doing about it? Fixing the elections so the wealthy families of Mexico's oligarchies stay in power. So you see, the immigration issue has been created by design. Our own government is doing this to us to drive down wages and have a labor force without political rights.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:43 pm
QUOTE
Stealing Mexico: Bush Team Helps Ruling Party "Floridize" Mexican Presidential Election
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/07/con06284.html
by Greg Palast
July 1, 2006
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War."
George Bush's operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November '06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.
It begins with an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign Intelligence Collection" and "Secret." Date: "9/17/2001," six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.
What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that thought.
This document is what's called a "guidance" memo for using a private contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea. We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Emirates. So you'd think the "Intelligence Collection" would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.
No so. When we received the document, we obtained as well its classified appendix. The target nations for "foreign counterterrorism investigation" were nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in Latin America -- Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others. See one of the documents yourself.
Latin America?! Was there a terror cell about to cross into San Diego with exploding enchiladas?
All the target nations had one thing in common besides a lack of terrorists: each had a left-leaning presidential candidate or a left-leaning president in office. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration, was facing a recall vote. In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.
Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was handed: ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election. ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons. Most of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency.
Having chosen our President for us, our President's men chose ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering. The use of the Venezuela's and Mexico's voter registry files to fight terror is not visible -- but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris' cheeks.
In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in laptops, claiming the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to voters in Florida. It turns out this operation was partly funded by the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP. Where did they get the voter info?
In that case, access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the Republican-assisted drive against Chavez, who won by a crushing plurality.
In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how to mess with elections.
In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party, only182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been dangerous. Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated during the campaign.
Crucial to the surprise victory of the ruling party was the introduction of computer voting machines and the centralization of voter databases. Observer Andrew Reding of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs reported that ruling party operatives had special access codes denied the opposition.
Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."
Foreign -- that is, American -- interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn't stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes -- and Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party's looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will say.
Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US' purloined "counterterrorism" lists will be used, we don't know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on Democracy -- along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.
* * *
For as-it-happens reporting on the Mexican election, check www.GregPalast.com for dispatches from our team investigator Special Correspondent Matt Pascarella with video journalist Rick Rowley in Mexico City.
Get your copy of Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, at www.GregPalast.com or from BuzzFlash.com
Special thanks to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Washington DC, which received and passed on to our team the FBI ChoicePoint files and other foreign intelligence documentation.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/07/con06284.html
by Greg Palast
July 1, 2006
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War."
George Bush's operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November '06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.
It begins with an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign Intelligence Collection" and "Secret." Date: "9/17/2001," six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.
What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that thought.
This document is what's called a "guidance" memo for using a private contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea. We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Emirates. So you'd think the "Intelligence Collection" would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.
No so. When we received the document, we obtained as well its classified appendix. The target nations for "foreign counterterrorism investigation" were nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in Latin America -- Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others. See one of the documents yourself.
Latin America?! Was there a terror cell about to cross into San Diego with exploding enchiladas?
All the target nations had one thing in common besides a lack of terrorists: each had a left-leaning presidential candidate or a left-leaning president in office. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration, was facing a recall vote. In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.
Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was handed: ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election. ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons. Most of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency.
Having chosen our President for us, our President's men chose ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering. The use of the Venezuela's and Mexico's voter registry files to fight terror is not visible -- but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris' cheeks.
In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in laptops, claiming the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to voters in Florida. It turns out this operation was partly funded by the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP. Where did they get the voter info?
In that case, access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the Republican-assisted drive against Chavez, who won by a crushing plurality.
In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how to mess with elections.
In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party, only182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been dangerous. Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated during the campaign.
Crucial to the surprise victory of the ruling party was the introduction of computer voting machines and the centralization of voter databases. Observer Andrew Reding of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs reported that ruling party operatives had special access codes denied the opposition.
Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."
Foreign -- that is, American -- interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn't stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes -- and Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party's looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will say.
Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US' purloined "counterterrorism" lists will be used, we don't know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on Democracy -- along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.
* * *
For as-it-happens reporting on the Mexican election, check www.GregPalast.com for dispatches from our team investigator Special Correspondent Matt Pascarella with video journalist Rick Rowley in Mexico City.
Get your copy of Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, at www.GregPalast.com or from BuzzFlash.com
Special thanks to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Washington DC, which received and passed on to our team the FBI ChoicePoint files and other foreign intelligence documentation.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:44 pm
Nazi rally at Puget Sound yesterday, July 2, 2006, in Olympia, Washington.
QUOTE
Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts
by John Kifner
New York Times
July 7, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0707-01.htm
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood.
Steven Barry, former Special Forces officer
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.
The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it.
The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.
The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."
Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."
The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis.
"They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq."
The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
by John Kifner
New York Times
July 7, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0707-01.htm
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood.
Steven Barry, former Special Forces officer
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.
The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it.
The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.
The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."
Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."
The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis.
"They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq."
The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:47 pm
QUOTE
Blackwater's top brass
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=108028&ran=144012
July 24, 2006
ERIK PRINCE, 37, Blackwater's founder and chairman, has deep roots in conservative Republican politics in Michigan.
His father, Edgar Prince, turned a small die-cast shop in Holland, Mich., into a major auto parts supplier with a specialty product: a windshield visor with a lighted mirror. After his death in 1995, the company was sold for $1.4 billion. Edgar Prince was a confidant and financial backer of Gary Bauer, a conservative activist and onetime presidential candidate.
Erik Prince's sister Betsy, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, is married to Dick DeVos, billionaire son of the founder of marketing giant Amway and this year's likely Republican candidate for governor of Michigan.
Erik Prince went to private schools in Michigan, earned his pilot's license at 17 and attended the U.S. Naval Academy. He later joined the Navy and was deployed with a SEAL team.
Prince was living in Virginia Beach when he founded Blackwater in 1996. He now runs the Prince Group, Blackwater's parent company, from an office in McLean, Va.
His first wife, Joan, died of cancer in 2003. He has since remarried, and has six children.
Prince is a board member of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping persecuted Christians around the world.
Since 1998, he has made nearly $200,000 in contributions to Republican committees and candidates, including President Bush and indicted former House leader Tom DeLay, according to Federal Election Commission records.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GARY JACKSON, 49, Blackwater's president, has been with the company almost from the beginning. Like Prince, he is a former SEAL, having retired as a warrant officer after 23 years in the Navy.
He is the senior executive at Blackwater's 7,000-acre headquarters and training compound in Moyock.
Jackson makes no secret of his political leanings. As editor of Blackwater's weekly electronic newsletter, he posted this headline at the top of the edition after the November 2004 presidential election: BUSH WINS; FOUR MORE YEARS!! HOOYAH!
He has made $9,000 in contributions to President Bush and Republican congressional candidates since 2004, according to Federal Election Commission records. Among the recipients of his donations were DeLay; Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; and Rep. Jerry Lewis, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COFER BLACK, 56, joined Blackwater in February 2005 as vice chairman after three decades in the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.
He was the CIA's director of counterterrorism when al-Qaida hijackers struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
In congressional testimony in 2002, Black said the CIA thwarted plans by Osama bin Laden to kill Black when he was stationed in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1995.
In his book 'Bush at War,†Bob Woodward said Black gave these marching orders to an undercover agent he dispatched to Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks: 'Get bin Laden, find him. I want his head in a box.â€
According to a United Press International report, Black was incensed when U.S. and Afghan forces failed to catch bin Laden at Tora Bora and complained about it anonymously in The Washington Post, prompting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to derail his CIA career. Black has denied that he was forced out of the agency.
In 2002 Black moved to the State Department, where one of his duties was managing security for the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece. In 2003, Blackwater won a contract to train security teams for the games.
Company officials say there was no connection.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOSEPH SCHMITZ, 49, became chief operating officer and general counsel of the Prince Group in September 2005 after a stint as inspector general at the Defense Department.
Schmitz was the senior Pentagon official responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse. Now he faces a congressional inquiry into accusations that he quashed two criminal investigations of senior Bush administration officials. The inquiry is continuing, according to a spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Schmitz was a special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Reagan administration. He was awarded the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Public Service on his retirement from the Pentagon.
Schmitz's father, John G. Schmitz, was a two-term Republican congressman from California and a prominent member of the John Birch Society, an ultra-conservative group that flowered during the Cold War. He ran for president in 1972 as the candidate of the American Independent Party after its founder, George Wallace, was paralyzed by a would-be assassin.
John Schmitz's political career ended with the revelation that he had a mistress who bore two of his children. He then moved to Washington, where he bought a house once owned by Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Joseph Schmitz's sister, Mary Kay LeTourneau, also became embroiled in a scandal. As a married teacher in Washington state, she went to prison after being convicted of having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student with whom she ultimately had two children. The two have since married.
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=108028&ran=144012
July 24, 2006
ERIK PRINCE, 37, Blackwater's founder and chairman, has deep roots in conservative Republican politics in Michigan.
His father, Edgar Prince, turned a small die-cast shop in Holland, Mich., into a major auto parts supplier with a specialty product: a windshield visor with a lighted mirror. After his death in 1995, the company was sold for $1.4 billion. Edgar Prince was a confidant and financial backer of Gary Bauer, a conservative activist and onetime presidential candidate.
Erik Prince's sister Betsy, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, is married to Dick DeVos, billionaire son of the founder of marketing giant Amway and this year's likely Republican candidate for governor of Michigan.
Erik Prince went to private schools in Michigan, earned his pilot's license at 17 and attended the U.S. Naval Academy. He later joined the Navy and was deployed with a SEAL team.
Prince was living in Virginia Beach when he founded Blackwater in 1996. He now runs the Prince Group, Blackwater's parent company, from an office in McLean, Va.
His first wife, Joan, died of cancer in 2003. He has since remarried, and has six children.
Prince is a board member of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping persecuted Christians around the world.
Since 1998, he has made nearly $200,000 in contributions to Republican committees and candidates, including President Bush and indicted former House leader Tom DeLay, according to Federal Election Commission records.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GARY JACKSON, 49, Blackwater's president, has been with the company almost from the beginning. Like Prince, he is a former SEAL, having retired as a warrant officer after 23 years in the Navy.
He is the senior executive at Blackwater's 7,000-acre headquarters and training compound in Moyock.
Jackson makes no secret of his political leanings. As editor of Blackwater's weekly electronic newsletter, he posted this headline at the top of the edition after the November 2004 presidential election: BUSH WINS; FOUR MORE YEARS!! HOOYAH!
He has made $9,000 in contributions to President Bush and Republican congressional candidates since 2004, according to Federal Election Commission records. Among the recipients of his donations were DeLay; Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; and Rep. Jerry Lewis, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COFER BLACK, 56, joined Blackwater in February 2005 as vice chairman after three decades in the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.
He was the CIA's director of counterterrorism when al-Qaida hijackers struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
In congressional testimony in 2002, Black said the CIA thwarted plans by Osama bin Laden to kill Black when he was stationed in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1995.
In his book 'Bush at War,†Bob Woodward said Black gave these marching orders to an undercover agent he dispatched to Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks: 'Get bin Laden, find him. I want his head in a box.â€
According to a United Press International report, Black was incensed when U.S. and Afghan forces failed to catch bin Laden at Tora Bora and complained about it anonymously in The Washington Post, prompting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to derail his CIA career. Black has denied that he was forced out of the agency.
In 2002 Black moved to the State Department, where one of his duties was managing security for the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece. In 2003, Blackwater won a contract to train security teams for the games.
Company officials say there was no connection.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOSEPH SCHMITZ, 49, became chief operating officer and general counsel of the Prince Group in September 2005 after a stint as inspector general at the Defense Department.
Schmitz was the senior Pentagon official responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse. Now he faces a congressional inquiry into accusations that he quashed two criminal investigations of senior Bush administration officials. The inquiry is continuing, according to a spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Schmitz was a special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Reagan administration. He was awarded the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Public Service on his retirement from the Pentagon.
Schmitz's father, John G. Schmitz, was a two-term Republican congressman from California and a prominent member of the John Birch Society, an ultra-conservative group that flowered during the Cold War. He ran for president in 1972 as the candidate of the American Independent Party after its founder, George Wallace, was paralyzed by a would-be assassin.
John Schmitz's political career ended with the revelation that he had a mistress who bore two of his children. He then moved to Washington, where he bought a house once owned by Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
Joseph Schmitz's sister, Mary Kay LeTourneau, also became embroiled in a scandal. As a married teacher in Washington state, she went to prison after being convicted of having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student with whom she ultimately had two children. The two have since married.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:47 pm
It don't take much of a shift to move from elimination talk (joking?) to actions as this lady found out in New York. As the rhetoric heats up, the crazies get going.
QUOTE
'Beyond politics'
July 27, 2006
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/07/beyond-politics.html
One of the really offensive aspect of the right-wing drumbeat of eliminationism is that so many of its purveyors -- notably Rush Limbaugh and his many imitators, including Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin -- try to slough off criticism of the nastiness of the things they say and write by pretending that it's just "entertainment," or merely a "joke".
The crude reality, of course, is that the things they say are not only deeply personal, they play out in the real world by poisoning our personal lives as well as our public discourse. Pretending afterward that it was all "just kidding" is palpable disingenuousness.
And the right-wing response -- claiming that liberals are responsible for the poisoning of the public well -- is especially offensive because it not only serves to disguise, but provides a positive justification for, the escalation of this kind of rhetoric into real action.
In upstate New York's Orange County, a left-leaning city councilwoman named http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/07/26/news-omhorsehead-07-26.html of this kind of rhetoric:
The bent windshield wipers annoyed her. The sex toy glued to her windshield back in June made her furious. But finding a horse's head in her swimming pool yesterday hit Wawayanda Councilwoman Gail Soro right where she lives.
It left her angry and frightened last night, as state police scoured the Orange County town for suspects. They were treating it as a case of harassment and trespassing, at the very least.
Soro and her husband, Ed, were in the pool until about 8:30 p.m. Monday night. Yesterday morning, they noticed the water looked a bit dark. They thought that an animal might have died in the pool.
Ed Soro grabbed the skimmer, raised a dark object from a corner of the pool and called out to his wife as he dragged it to the surface: "That's a horse's head."
She quickly went back into their house. "I was hysterical," she recalled last night.
As the day went on, her hysterics gave way to anger. The stunt with the windshield wipers and the sex toy both happened at Wawayanda Town Hall, where Soro is the lone Democrat on the five-member Town Board.
But the horse's head was brought to their home, while they slept, where their grandchildren come over to swim.
Soro, to her credit, is not backing down:
Gail Soro sent her own message last night: She won't be chased out of office. She's up for re-election next year, and she's running. Soro's been right in the middle of tussles over growth and planning that are the hot-button issues in the town.
Still, she wondered if her story would discourage others from running for office.
"Who would want to put up with this?" she said.
Republican Councilman Dave Cole acknowledged that he's knocked heads with Soro, but he flatly condemned what was done to her yesterday.
"This isn't politics. This is beyond politics," Cole said. "This is beyond the pale."
Credit Councilman Cole with recognizing that this kind of thuggery has no place in American politics.
Too bad he doesn't also take the time to note that the conservative movement's chief figureheads are the folks most publicly fomenting it.
July 27, 2006
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/07/beyond-politics.html
One of the really offensive aspect of the right-wing drumbeat of eliminationism is that so many of its purveyors -- notably Rush Limbaugh and his many imitators, including Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin -- try to slough off criticism of the nastiness of the things they say and write by pretending that it's just "entertainment," or merely a "joke".
The crude reality, of course, is that the things they say are not only deeply personal, they play out in the real world by poisoning our personal lives as well as our public discourse. Pretending afterward that it was all "just kidding" is palpable disingenuousness.
And the right-wing response -- claiming that liberals are responsible for the poisoning of the public well -- is especially offensive because it not only serves to disguise, but provides a positive justification for, the escalation of this kind of rhetoric into real action.
In upstate New York's Orange County, a left-leaning city councilwoman named http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/07/26/news-omhorsehead-07-26.html of this kind of rhetoric:
The bent windshield wipers annoyed her. The sex toy glued to her windshield back in June made her furious. But finding a horse's head in her swimming pool yesterday hit Wawayanda Councilwoman Gail Soro right where she lives.
It left her angry and frightened last night, as state police scoured the Orange County town for suspects. They were treating it as a case of harassment and trespassing, at the very least.
Soro and her husband, Ed, were in the pool until about 8:30 p.m. Monday night. Yesterday morning, they noticed the water looked a bit dark. They thought that an animal might have died in the pool.
Ed Soro grabbed the skimmer, raised a dark object from a corner of the pool and called out to his wife as he dragged it to the surface: "That's a horse's head."
She quickly went back into their house. "I was hysterical," she recalled last night.
As the day went on, her hysterics gave way to anger. The stunt with the windshield wipers and the sex toy both happened at Wawayanda Town Hall, where Soro is the lone Democrat on the five-member Town Board.
But the horse's head was brought to their home, while they slept, where their grandchildren come over to swim.
Soro, to her credit, is not backing down:
Gail Soro sent her own message last night: She won't be chased out of office. She's up for re-election next year, and she's running. Soro's been right in the middle of tussles over growth and planning that are the hot-button issues in the town.
Still, she wondered if her story would discourage others from running for office.
"Who would want to put up with this?" she said.
Republican Councilman Dave Cole acknowledged that he's knocked heads with Soro, but he flatly condemned what was done to her yesterday.
"This isn't politics. This is beyond politics," Cole said. "This is beyond the pale."
Credit Councilman Cole with recognizing that this kind of thuggery has no place in American politics.
Too bad he doesn't also take the time to note that the conservative movement's chief figureheads are the folks most publicly fomenting it.
The Bush Administration has laundried Blackwater para-military forces more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:47 pm
QUOTE
Mercenary Jackpot
Jeremy Scahill
Researcher Garrett Ordower contributed to this story.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/scahill
August 10, 2006 (August 28, 2006 issue)
While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA. Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally. The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the "war on terror."
Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."
A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal, obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies.
The WPPS contract awarded in 2004 was divided among a handful of companies, among them DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Blackwater was originally slated to be paid $229.5 million for five years, according to a State Department contract list. Yet as of June 30, just two years into the program, it had been paid a total of $321,715,794. When confronted with this apparent $100 million discrepancy, the State Department could not readily explain it. Blackwater's two years of WPPS earnings exceed many estimates of the company's total government contracts, which the Virginian-Pilot recently put at $290 million combined since 2000. Six years ago the government paid Blackwater less than $250,000.
"This underscores the need for Congress to exercise real oversight on the runaway use of secret companies that have strong connections to the Bush Administration, for clandestine services all over the world," says Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, a leading Congressional critic of private military companies.
"This whole business of security is just insidious," says former Assistant Defense Secretary Philip Coyle, who worked at the Pentagon from 1994 to 2001. "The costs keep going up, and there is no end in sight to what you can spend. What happens is you keep raising the threat levels to require more actions and more contracts to overcome these imaginary threats. It's an endless spiral."
In soliciting bids for the 2004 global contract, the State Department cited a need born of "the continual turmoil in the Mid East, and the post-war stabilization efforts by the United States Government in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq." It said the government "is unable to provide protective services on a long-term basis from its pool of special agents, thus, outside contractual support is required." Coyle, now with the Center for Defense Information, believes the privatization of security duties historically fulfilled by US Marines and other active-duty military is directly related to the Iraq occupation. "Obviously the military could do it, but indeed the Administration is looking for places to get more troops for Iraq," Coyle says.
While the WPPS program and the broader use of private security contractors is not new, it has escalated dramatically under the Bush Administration. According to the most recent Government Accountability Office report, some 48,000 private soldiers, working for 181 private military firms, are deployed in Iraq alone. Blackwater, now one of the most prominent and successful companies providing soldiers in Iraq, was relatively unknown until March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and killed in Falluja [see Scahill, "Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater," May 8]. In the days and weeks that followed, company executives hired ultra-connected lobbyists and were welcomed by powerful government officials as heroes, allowing the firm to solidify its role in the Bush Administration's foreign policy apparatus.
Since 2003 Blackwater has held the high-profile job of guarding senior US officials in Iraq, including all three occupation-era ambassadors. The vaunted WPPS contract was awarded at the end of Paul Bremer's tenure in Baghdad. Blackwater, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment, refuses to divulge where its forces are deployed under the program. WPPS documents say contractors may be dispatched almost anywhere, including on US soil. The State Department says explicitly that there is a "long-term" need for these "protective services." Schakowsky says she will request a formal explanation from the department of the WPPS contract: "We need to know why the Bush Administration keeps writing blank checks to Blackwater and others, while it keeps Congress and the American people in the dark."
Jeremy Scahill
Researcher Garrett Ordower contributed to this story.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/scahill
August 10, 2006 (August 28, 2006 issue)
While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas. The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA. Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally. The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the "war on terror."
Blackwater's highly lucrative "diplomatic security" contract was officially awarded under the State Department's little-known Worldwide Personal Protective Service (WPPS) program, described in State Department documents as a government initiative to protect US officials as well as "certain foreign government high level officials whenever the need arises."
A heavily redacted 2005 government audit of Blackwater's WPPS contract proposal, obtained by The Nation, reveals that Blackwater included profit in its overhead and its total costs, which would result "not only in a duplication of profit but a pyramiding of profit since in effect Blackwater is applying profit to profit." The audit also found that the company tried to inflate its profits by representing different Blackwater divisions as wholly separate companies.
The WPPS contract awarded in 2004 was divided among a handful of companies, among them DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Blackwater was originally slated to be paid $229.5 million for five years, according to a State Department contract list. Yet as of June 30, just two years into the program, it had been paid a total of $321,715,794. When confronted with this apparent $100 million discrepancy, the State Department could not readily explain it. Blackwater's two years of WPPS earnings exceed many estimates of the company's total government contracts, which the Virginian-Pilot recently put at $290 million combined since 2000. Six years ago the government paid Blackwater less than $250,000.
"This underscores the need for Congress to exercise real oversight on the runaway use of secret companies that have strong connections to the Bush Administration, for clandestine services all over the world," says Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, a leading Congressional critic of private military companies.
"This whole business of security is just insidious," says former Assistant Defense Secretary Philip Coyle, who worked at the Pentagon from 1994 to 2001. "The costs keep going up, and there is no end in sight to what you can spend. What happens is you keep raising the threat levels to require more actions and more contracts to overcome these imaginary threats. It's an endless spiral."
In soliciting bids for the 2004 global contract, the State Department cited a need born of "the continual turmoil in the Mid East, and the post-war stabilization efforts by the United States Government in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq." It said the government "is unable to provide protective services on a long-term basis from its pool of special agents, thus, outside contractual support is required." Coyle, now with the Center for Defense Information, believes the privatization of security duties historically fulfilled by US Marines and other active-duty military is directly related to the Iraq occupation. "Obviously the military could do it, but indeed the Administration is looking for places to get more troops for Iraq," Coyle says.
While the WPPS program and the broader use of private security contractors is not new, it has escalated dramatically under the Bush Administration. According to the most recent Government Accountability Office report, some 48,000 private soldiers, working for 181 private military firms, are deployed in Iraq alone. Blackwater, now one of the most prominent and successful companies providing soldiers in Iraq, was relatively unknown until March 31, 2004, when four of its contractors were ambushed and killed in Falluja [see Scahill, "Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater," May 8]. In the days and weeks that followed, company executives hired ultra-connected lobbyists and were welcomed by powerful government officials as heroes, allowing the firm to solidify its role in the Bush Administration's foreign policy apparatus.
Since 2003 Blackwater has held the high-profile job of guarding senior US officials in Iraq, including all three occupation-era ambassadors. The vaunted WPPS contract was awarded at the end of Paul Bremer's tenure in Baghdad. Blackwater, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment, refuses to divulge where its forces are deployed under the program. WPPS documents say contractors may be dispatched almost anywhere, including on US soil. The State Department says explicitly that there is a "long-term" need for these "protective services." Schakowsky says she will request a formal explanation from the department of the WPPS contract: "We need to know why the Bush Administration keeps writing blank checks to Blackwater and others, while it keeps Congress and the American people in the dark."
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:50 pm
The Minutemen are using the immigration issue to leverage other Supremest agendas like recruitment.
QUOTE
It's the Boss, Not the Workers
The Minutemen: Mad at the Wrong Guys
By DAN LA BOTZ
http://www.counterpunch.org/labotz08192006.html
August 19 / 20, 2006
The image and the idea of the Minuteman is attractive: the patriot, the typical working guy, prepared to take up arms at a moment's notice to defend his country. Minutemen and Minutewomen too: the ordinary people fighting the good fight to protect the American way of life: a good job, a home, a living wage, health care and education, and some left over for entertainment and eventually a retirement with dignity.
The contemporary Minutemen, mostly white guys with guns, have taken their stand on the Mexico border. The stand with binoculars, gazing South, yearning to fire off a few rounds at their enemies the immigrants.
The problem is that the Minutemen are mad at the wrong guys. The guys they want are back East. The enemies they're after are not short, dark-skinned guys with names like Jesus Martinez but tall, fair-skinned fellows with names like Jack Welsh, Sam Walton and Richard Farmer.
Answer these questions, and you see where the Minutemen have gotten lost.
Who closed the auto plants and steel mills taking away hundreds of thousands of unionized jobs with high pay and good benefits? Who sent the auto parts plants, television plants, hospital supply plants, and many others to Mexico? American corporations sent them South looking for lower wages. The foreign workers had no hand in it and weren't even allowed to say a word.
Who declares bankruptcy to take awake workers' contracts, wages, benefits and pensions? Not immigrant workers. American corporations like LTV, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, United Airlines, Delphi have turned to bankruptcy to screw workers. The immigrants worker now takes a job in a place that plays little more than the minimum wage-but the employers drove down the wage, not the immigrants.
Who took your son or daughter-or is about to take them--and sent them to kill or die for oil in Iraq? An American politician, a congressman, probably a former corporate lawyer, threatens your kids' lives-not the immigrant worker. Most immigrants I know oppose the U.S. imperial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Who lowers income taxes for the rich and raises sales taxes on the poor? You can bet it was politicians who receive money from corporate PACs. Immigrant workers didn't raise our taxes. Most of them can't even vote and congressmen pay even less attention to them than they do to us.
Who was it that--after they got rid of the union jobs--hired the immigrant, paid her or him low wages, denied them basic benefits like health care, and worked them like they were pack animals? Who advertised for immigrants in Mexico or Central America, brought them here illegally, hired them illegally, and often worked them in violation of the wages and hours act? Well, it wasn't Juanita.
Who discriminates against African American workers, preferring to hire Latin American immigrants who have no rights? It's the boss-not the immigrant worker.
Who was it that destroyed Mexico's economy with NAFTA, forcing the Mexicans to come here? Who was it that supported Guatemala's dictators as they turned Indian communities into killing fields, leaving many Guatemalans with no alternative but to come here? Who was it who destroyed the economies of South America, creating mass unemployment followed by mass migration? I think you know who it was, and it wasn't the wretched family trying to cross the Sonora-Arizona desert with a few gallons of water, a few dollars in their pocket and a prayer on their lips.
Who should you be mad at, Minutemen? It wasn't the foreign worker and it wasn't immigrant who took away our jobs, high wages, good benefits and decent working conditions. It was that congeries of scoundrels and lawyers, that complex of interlocking directorates and corporate hierarchies, that network of good old boys with Texas oil money and that clique of New York bankers with sheaves of stocks and bonds, that system of political payoffs, favoritism and nepotism that taken all together we call the American power elite--what the old school called the ruling class-that's who did it. They're white guys, they wear ties, and they live on this side of the border.
If the Minutemen want to guard America from lying, thieving, murdering bastards who would destroy our country and its values, then they are shooting in the WRONG DIRECTION. Go East young Minuteman!
If the Minutemen want to protect us, then they should throw their guns in their jeeps and go to Washington, D.C. to get those guys who cut the taxes on the rich and raised the taxes on the poor.
Or, instead of taking pot shots across the border, they should take their troops to New York and visit the offices of the insurance companies and health care corporations that keep us from getting single payer health.
They might jump in their half-tracks and head to the headquarters of the oil companies whose avarice drives us to war in Iraq while opposing measures that would conserve our resources and save our environment.
The contemporary Minutemen don't seem to me to be in the tradition they claim. The original Minutemen didn't go out shooting at poor farmers coming to town looking for jobs, they fought their government-then the British government-and they fought the wealthy English Loyalists. The original Minutemen fought the power-not the powerless.
I could support the Minutemen, once they get straight who the enemy is. And it isn't Jesus and Juanita. It's guys like Sam Walton of Walmart, Jack Welsh of GE and Richard Farmer of CINTAS, corporate CEOs who drive to amass profits and power who have fought labor unions, killed the good jobs, driven down wages. How about the Minutemen mount up, gather up the posse, and get those guys. That would be a task worthy of their historic name.
Dan La Botz is a Cincinnati-based writer, teacher, and activist.
The Minutemen: Mad at the Wrong Guys
By DAN LA BOTZ
http://www.counterpunch.org/labotz08192006.html
August 19 / 20, 2006
The image and the idea of the Minuteman is attractive: the patriot, the typical working guy, prepared to take up arms at a moment's notice to defend his country. Minutemen and Minutewomen too: the ordinary people fighting the good fight to protect the American way of life: a good job, a home, a living wage, health care and education, and some left over for entertainment and eventually a retirement with dignity.
The contemporary Minutemen, mostly white guys with guns, have taken their stand on the Mexico border. The stand with binoculars, gazing South, yearning to fire off a few rounds at their enemies the immigrants.
The problem is that the Minutemen are mad at the wrong guys. The guys they want are back East. The enemies they're after are not short, dark-skinned guys with names like Jesus Martinez but tall, fair-skinned fellows with names like Jack Welsh, Sam Walton and Richard Farmer.
Answer these questions, and you see where the Minutemen have gotten lost.
Who closed the auto plants and steel mills taking away hundreds of thousands of unionized jobs with high pay and good benefits? Who sent the auto parts plants, television plants, hospital supply plants, and many others to Mexico? American corporations sent them South looking for lower wages. The foreign workers had no hand in it and weren't even allowed to say a word.
Who declares bankruptcy to take awake workers' contracts, wages, benefits and pensions? Not immigrant workers. American corporations like LTV, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, United Airlines, Delphi have turned to bankruptcy to screw workers. The immigrants worker now takes a job in a place that plays little more than the minimum wage-but the employers drove down the wage, not the immigrants.
Who took your son or daughter-or is about to take them--and sent them to kill or die for oil in Iraq? An American politician, a congressman, probably a former corporate lawyer, threatens your kids' lives-not the immigrant worker. Most immigrants I know oppose the U.S. imperial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Who lowers income taxes for the rich and raises sales taxes on the poor? You can bet it was politicians who receive money from corporate PACs. Immigrant workers didn't raise our taxes. Most of them can't even vote and congressmen pay even less attention to them than they do to us.
Who was it that--after they got rid of the union jobs--hired the immigrant, paid her or him low wages, denied them basic benefits like health care, and worked them like they were pack animals? Who advertised for immigrants in Mexico or Central America, brought them here illegally, hired them illegally, and often worked them in violation of the wages and hours act? Well, it wasn't Juanita.
Who discriminates against African American workers, preferring to hire Latin American immigrants who have no rights? It's the boss-not the immigrant worker.
Who was it that destroyed Mexico's economy with NAFTA, forcing the Mexicans to come here? Who was it that supported Guatemala's dictators as they turned Indian communities into killing fields, leaving many Guatemalans with no alternative but to come here? Who was it who destroyed the economies of South America, creating mass unemployment followed by mass migration? I think you know who it was, and it wasn't the wretched family trying to cross the Sonora-Arizona desert with a few gallons of water, a few dollars in their pocket and a prayer on their lips.
Who should you be mad at, Minutemen? It wasn't the foreign worker and it wasn't immigrant who took away our jobs, high wages, good benefits and decent working conditions. It was that congeries of scoundrels and lawyers, that complex of interlocking directorates and corporate hierarchies, that network of good old boys with Texas oil money and that clique of New York bankers with sheaves of stocks and bonds, that system of political payoffs, favoritism and nepotism that taken all together we call the American power elite--what the old school called the ruling class-that's who did it. They're white guys, they wear ties, and they live on this side of the border.
If the Minutemen want to guard America from lying, thieving, murdering bastards who would destroy our country and its values, then they are shooting in the WRONG DIRECTION. Go East young Minuteman!
If the Minutemen want to protect us, then they should throw their guns in their jeeps and go to Washington, D.C. to get those guys who cut the taxes on the rich and raised the taxes on the poor.
Or, instead of taking pot shots across the border, they should take their troops to New York and visit the offices of the insurance companies and health care corporations that keep us from getting single payer health.
They might jump in their half-tracks and head to the headquarters of the oil companies whose avarice drives us to war in Iraq while opposing measures that would conserve our resources and save our environment.
The contemporary Minutemen don't seem to me to be in the tradition they claim. The original Minutemen didn't go out shooting at poor farmers coming to town looking for jobs, they fought their government-then the British government-and they fought the wealthy English Loyalists. The original Minutemen fought the power-not the powerless.
I could support the Minutemen, once they get straight who the enemy is. And it isn't Jesus and Juanita. It's guys like Sam Walton of Walmart, Jack Welsh of GE and Richard Farmer of CINTAS, corporate CEOs who drive to amass profits and power who have fought labor unions, killed the good jobs, driven down wages. How about the Minutemen mount up, gather up the posse, and get those guys. That would be a task worthy of their historic name.
Dan La Botz is a Cincinnati-based writer, teacher, and activist.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:51 pm
QUOTE
Republicans and the 'race card'
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
October 27, 2006
[A "race card" created as a promotional joke by the white supremacist National Alliance.]
Now we know why Republicans are so blithe about race-baiting from within their ranks: It doesn't really happen, you see.
It's all just in black people's imaginations anyway. It's a fiction created by black politicians for their own gain.
That's the official word from the White House, anyway. Funny how cheap rationalizations created years ago by the National Alliance and David Duke now come out of the mouths of our national leaders.
Most of the country has been watching the story regarding the nasty attack ads against Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, a black man running for the Senate there. Ford has fired back, and the GOP, after first claiming it could do nothing, has finally pulled the ads. (Josh Marshall has been on the case admirably.)
Nitpicker points out that Tony Snow on Chris Matthews' Hardball show yesterday (video at Think Progress) explained where it's all coming from:
MATTHEWS: Harold, call me. There's a cute -- I would say sexy, most people would say that -- white woman, naked, naked -- on the screen setting up a date with Harold Ford who is an African-American. In American society -- you went to school in North Carolina. So did I for a year. Do you think in any part of the country that is not playing on racial sensitivities?
SNOW: I don't think so. I mean, maybe I'm just quaint in this day and age. But no, I think there is always an attempt when you have got an African-American candidate to try to attribute something to the race card. But no, I don't.
Snow evidently believes we're all too stupid to read between the ad's lines. (Holding the public and press in general contempt seems to be a requirement for White House spokesmen these days.) Really, it's not hard to understand why Republicans would run an ad depicting Ford dating white women. The South is one of those places where things like interracial marriage and dating still set people off.
(Just in case anyone in fact was too dense to figure it out, the General has a more explicit version.)
Recall, if you will, that the fear of black men having sex with white women was a major raison d'etre of the lynching era:
Lynchings were broadly viewed as simply a crude, but understandable and even necessary, expression of community will. This was particularly true in the South, where blacks were viewed as symbolic of the region's continuing economic and cultural oppression by the North. As an 1899 editorial in the Newnan, Georgia, Herald and Advertiser explained it: "It would be as easy to check the rise and fall of the ocean’s tide as to stem the wrath of Southern men when the sacredness of our firesides and the virtue of our women are ruthlessly trodden under foot."
Such sexual paranoia was central to the lynching phenomenon. In the years following black emancipation -- during which time a previously tiny class of black criminals became swelled by the ranks of impoverished former slaves -- a vast mythology arose surrounding black men's supposed voracious lust for white women, a legend for which in truth there was scant evidence, and one that stands in stark contrast to (and perhaps has its psychological roots in) the reality of white men’s longtime sexual domination of black women, particularly during the slavery era. In any event, the omnipresence of the threat of rape of white women by black men came to be almost universally believed by American whites. Likewise, conventional wisdom held that lynchings were a natural response to this threat: "The mob stands today as the most potential bulwark between the women of the South and such a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and precipitate the annihilation of the Negro race," warned John Temple Graves, editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Such views were common not merely in the South, but among Northerners as well. The New York Herald, for instance, lectured its readers: "[T]he difference between bad citizens who believe in lynch law, and good citizens who abhor lynch law, is largely in the fact that the good citizens live where their wives and daughters are perfectly safe."
The cries of rape, for many whites in both South and North, raised fears not merely of sexual violence but of racial mixing, known commonly as "miscegenation," which was specifically outlawed in some 30 states. White supremacy was not only commonplace, it was in fact the dominant worldview of Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries; most Caucasians believed they represented Nature’s premier creation (having been informed this by a broad range of social scientists of the period, whose views eventually coalesced into the pseudo-science known as eugenics), and that any "dilution" of those strains represented a gross violation of the natural order. Thus it was not surprising that a number of lynching incidents actually resulted from the discovery of consensual relations between a black man and a white woman.
Whites were so proud of their "protective" efforts that they often made postcards from the lynchings. This is what "race card" meant in the old days:
Tennessee, as it happens, has a long and colorful history of lynching. Indeed, the state passed one of the first anti-miscegenation laws in the nation (back in 1822) and was one of the last to repeal them, hanging on until forced to do so by the Supreme Court in 1967.
So perhaps it wasn't just a coincidence that when the Senate last year finally decided to issue an apology for the lynching era, among the six senators who refused to support the measure -- all of whom were Republican -- was the senior senator from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, who offered as an excuse the following: "There is no resolution of apology that we can pass today that will teach one more child to read, prevent one more case of AIDS, or stop one more violent crime."
Cheap rationalizations, though, have been the GOP's specialty on race relations ever since the advent of the Southern Strategy, and these days are something of an entrenched form of art in conservative circles. Indeed, most conservative rhetoric on race is actually Newspeak: the epistomelogical disembowelment of terms that tend to harm right-wing interests, usually by twisting the meaning to its rough opposite.
Recall, for instance, how "race-baiting" has been distorted into meaninglessness by right-wingers who are prone to engaging in that very behavior (see, e.g., Michelle Malkin). Likewise, identity politics that were created by whites a hundred years ago, under the guise of "eugenics," are now blamed on minorities who are trying to overcome them:
"Identity politics," though it was not called that then, was an invention of 19th-century white supremacists who, along with their acolytes, continued to employ such divisions with abandon through most of the first half of the last century. Their heirs continue to do so, but in less nakedly racial terms.
Now we have attacks on affirmative action, the "welfare state," hate-crimes legislation, and various aspects of civil-rights law, all under the umbrella of combating "identity politics." And consistently, there has been one primary source for this resurgence of white supremacy camouflaged as "normal" politics: the conservative movement generally, and the Republican Party specifically.
Snow's use of the term "race card" is part and parcel of a general distortion of the term's original meaning, which (like "race baiting") was as a way to describe the racial fear-mongering by right-wing demagogues of the Civil Rights era: someone was playing "the race card" if they tried connecting their opponent to negative racial stereotypes. As a result of right-wing pushback, the meaning has shifted. Nowadays, anyone raising awareness of such tactics -- which is their actual antithesis -- is himself accused of playing the "race card."
Even if Snow's theory -- that it's all coming from cynical black politicians -- were true, it still wouldn't explain why so many Republicans seem to play the race card themselves with nary a black politician in sight.
Actually, it is this serial obfuscation through Newspeak that enables the GOP to get away with waving the Confederate flag and building campaigns around appeals to white people's fears about Latino immigrants. It's how someone like Rush Limbaugh can play the race card as a football commentator -- in an incident that would have destroyed most people's media credibility forever -- and then turn around and claim that it's the people attacking the Ford smear who are actually the racists in all this.
The only effective bulwark against this kind of Newspeak assault on the meaning of important issues in our public discourse is public repudiation, early and often. The point of doing so is not merely for partisan political gain; it's a matter of defending the underpinnings of democracy itself.
This is the conclusion of Tali Mendelberg, whose excellent study, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality, looks at the role this kind of race-baiting has played in the body politic:
The most important and underplayed lesson of the [Willie] Horton message is that, in a racially divided society that aspires to equality, the injection of race into campaigns poses a great danger to democratic politics -- so long as the injection of race takes place under cover. When a society has repudiated racism, yet racial conflict persists, candidates can win by playing the race card only through implicit racial appeals. The implicit nature of these appeals allows them to prime racial stereotypes, fears, and resentments while appearing not to do so. When an implicit appeal is rendered explicit -- when other elites bring the racial meaning of the appeal to voters' attention -- it appears to violate the norm of racial equality. It then loses its ability to prime white voters' racial predispositions. As a consequence, voters not only become more disaffected with the candidate, but also prevent their negative racial predispositions from influencing their opinion on issues of race. Political communication that derogates African Americans does little harm if it is widely, immediately, and strongly denounced. In an age of equality, what damages racial equality is the failure to notice the racial meaning of political communication, not the racial meaning itself.
It's rather telling, in fact, when our national leaders deliberately choose not to notice the racial meaning of political communications. It reveals, once again, what kind of values the conservative movement is all about.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
October 27, 2006
[A "race card" created as a promotional joke by the white supremacist National Alliance.]
Now we know why Republicans are so blithe about race-baiting from within their ranks: It doesn't really happen, you see.
It's all just in black people's imaginations anyway. It's a fiction created by black politicians for their own gain.
That's the official word from the White House, anyway. Funny how cheap rationalizations created years ago by the National Alliance and David Duke now come out of the mouths of our national leaders.
Most of the country has been watching the story regarding the nasty attack ads against Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford, a black man running for the Senate there. Ford has fired back, and the GOP, after first claiming it could do nothing, has finally pulled the ads. (Josh Marshall has been on the case admirably.)
Nitpicker points out that Tony Snow on Chris Matthews' Hardball show yesterday (video at Think Progress) explained where it's all coming from:
MATTHEWS: Harold, call me. There's a cute -- I would say sexy, most people would say that -- white woman, naked, naked -- on the screen setting up a date with Harold Ford who is an African-American. In American society -- you went to school in North Carolina. So did I for a year. Do you think in any part of the country that is not playing on racial sensitivities?
SNOW: I don't think so. I mean, maybe I'm just quaint in this day and age. But no, I think there is always an attempt when you have got an African-American candidate to try to attribute something to the race card. But no, I don't.
Snow evidently believes we're all too stupid to read between the ad's lines. (Holding the public and press in general contempt seems to be a requirement for White House spokesmen these days.) Really, it's not hard to understand why Republicans would run an ad depicting Ford dating white women. The South is one of those places where things like interracial marriage and dating still set people off.
(Just in case anyone in fact was too dense to figure it out, the General has a more explicit version.)
Recall, if you will, that the fear of black men having sex with white women was a major raison d'etre of the lynching era:
Lynchings were broadly viewed as simply a crude, but understandable and even necessary, expression of community will. This was particularly true in the South, where blacks were viewed as symbolic of the region's continuing economic and cultural oppression by the North. As an 1899 editorial in the Newnan, Georgia, Herald and Advertiser explained it: "It would be as easy to check the rise and fall of the ocean’s tide as to stem the wrath of Southern men when the sacredness of our firesides and the virtue of our women are ruthlessly trodden under foot."
Such sexual paranoia was central to the lynching phenomenon. In the years following black emancipation -- during which time a previously tiny class of black criminals became swelled by the ranks of impoverished former slaves -- a vast mythology arose surrounding black men's supposed voracious lust for white women, a legend for which in truth there was scant evidence, and one that stands in stark contrast to (and perhaps has its psychological roots in) the reality of white men’s longtime sexual domination of black women, particularly during the slavery era. In any event, the omnipresence of the threat of rape of white women by black men came to be almost universally believed by American whites. Likewise, conventional wisdom held that lynchings were a natural response to this threat: "The mob stands today as the most potential bulwark between the women of the South and such a carnival of crime as would infuriate the world and precipitate the annihilation of the Negro race," warned John Temple Graves, editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Such views were common not merely in the South, but among Northerners as well. The New York Herald, for instance, lectured its readers: "[T]he difference between bad citizens who believe in lynch law, and good citizens who abhor lynch law, is largely in the fact that the good citizens live where their wives and daughters are perfectly safe."
The cries of rape, for many whites in both South and North, raised fears not merely of sexual violence but of racial mixing, known commonly as "miscegenation," which was specifically outlawed in some 30 states. White supremacy was not only commonplace, it was in fact the dominant worldview of Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries; most Caucasians believed they represented Nature’s premier creation (having been informed this by a broad range of social scientists of the period, whose views eventually coalesced into the pseudo-science known as eugenics), and that any "dilution" of those strains represented a gross violation of the natural order. Thus it was not surprising that a number of lynching incidents actually resulted from the discovery of consensual relations between a black man and a white woman.
Whites were so proud of their "protective" efforts that they often made postcards from the lynchings. This is what "race card" meant in the old days:
Tennessee, as it happens, has a long and colorful history of lynching. Indeed, the state passed one of the first anti-miscegenation laws in the nation (back in 1822) and was one of the last to repeal them, hanging on until forced to do so by the Supreme Court in 1967.
So perhaps it wasn't just a coincidence that when the Senate last year finally decided to issue an apology for the lynching era, among the six senators who refused to support the measure -- all of whom were Republican -- was the senior senator from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander, who offered as an excuse the following: "There is no resolution of apology that we can pass today that will teach one more child to read, prevent one more case of AIDS, or stop one more violent crime."
Cheap rationalizations, though, have been the GOP's specialty on race relations ever since the advent of the Southern Strategy, and these days are something of an entrenched form of art in conservative circles. Indeed, most conservative rhetoric on race is actually Newspeak: the epistomelogical disembowelment of terms that tend to harm right-wing interests, usually by twisting the meaning to its rough opposite.
Recall, for instance, how "race-baiting" has been distorted into meaninglessness by right-wingers who are prone to engaging in that very behavior (see, e.g., Michelle Malkin). Likewise, identity politics that were created by whites a hundred years ago, under the guise of "eugenics," are now blamed on minorities who are trying to overcome them:
"Identity politics," though it was not called that then, was an invention of 19th-century white supremacists who, along with their acolytes, continued to employ such divisions with abandon through most of the first half of the last century. Their heirs continue to do so, but in less nakedly racial terms.
Now we have attacks on affirmative action, the "welfare state," hate-crimes legislation, and various aspects of civil-rights law, all under the umbrella of combating "identity politics." And consistently, there has been one primary source for this resurgence of white supremacy camouflaged as "normal" politics: the conservative movement generally, and the Republican Party specifically.
Snow's use of the term "race card" is part and parcel of a general distortion of the term's original meaning, which (like "race baiting") was as a way to describe the racial fear-mongering by right-wing demagogues of the Civil Rights era: someone was playing "the race card" if they tried connecting their opponent to negative racial stereotypes. As a result of right-wing pushback, the meaning has shifted. Nowadays, anyone raising awareness of such tactics -- which is their actual antithesis -- is himself accused of playing the "race card."
Even if Snow's theory -- that it's all coming from cynical black politicians -- were true, it still wouldn't explain why so many Republicans seem to play the race card themselves with nary a black politician in sight.
Actually, it is this serial obfuscation through Newspeak that enables the GOP to get away with waving the Confederate flag and building campaigns around appeals to white people's fears about Latino immigrants. It's how someone like Rush Limbaugh can play the race card as a football commentator -- in an incident that would have destroyed most people's media credibility forever -- and then turn around and claim that it's the people attacking the Ford smear who are actually the racists in all this.
The only effective bulwark against this kind of Newspeak assault on the meaning of important issues in our public discourse is public repudiation, early and often. The point of doing so is not merely for partisan political gain; it's a matter of defending the underpinnings of democracy itself.
This is the conclusion of Tali Mendelberg, whose excellent study, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality, looks at the role this kind of race-baiting has played in the body politic:
The most important and underplayed lesson of the [Willie] Horton message is that, in a racially divided society that aspires to equality, the injection of race into campaigns poses a great danger to democratic politics -- so long as the injection of race takes place under cover. When a society has repudiated racism, yet racial conflict persists, candidates can win by playing the race card only through implicit racial appeals. The implicit nature of these appeals allows them to prime racial stereotypes, fears, and resentments while appearing not to do so. When an implicit appeal is rendered explicit -- when other elites bring the racial meaning of the appeal to voters' attention -- it appears to violate the norm of racial equality. It then loses its ability to prime white voters' racial predispositions. As a consequence, voters not only become more disaffected with the candidate, but also prevent their negative racial predispositions from influencing their opinion on issues of race. Political communication that derogates African Americans does little harm if it is widely, immediately, and strongly denounced. In an age of equality, what damages racial equality is the failure to notice the racial meaning of political communication, not the racial meaning itself.
It's rather telling, in fact, when our national leaders deliberately choose not to notice the racial meaning of political communications. It reveals, once again, what kind of values the conservative movement is all about.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:53 pm
QUOTE
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/59746/
by Joshua Holland
August 14, 2007.
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/59746/
Things are going gang-busters for Blackwater, the world's premiere private army. They've got a nice chunk of the booming security business in Iraq -- the estimated 180,000 private contractors now exceeds the number of troops in the country and, as Jeremy Scahill points out on the front page, firms like Blackwater are "flush with profits."
But that's only a tiny slice of the pie: Blackwater recently introduced its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly Armored Personnel Carrier; Blackwater Airships is building a remotely-piloted vehicle; the company's global air service, Presidential Airways, holds a secret facility clearance from the DoD -- I'm sure they have nothing to do with any extraordinary rendition -- and the mercenary outfit recently announced that it was starting a private intelligence firm to rival the CIA.
It's a great time to be an unaccountable killer in a three-piece suit!
And the company's training operations are spreading. From its headquarters and primary training facility in North Carolina -- you can get some excellent sniper training there, I hear -- to "Blackwater North" in Mount Carroll, Illinois. And now the firm is trying to open a sprawling new training facility in California.
Specifically, in tiny Potrero, California, a berg in San diego county with a population of fewer than 1,000.
What exactly does the infamous war profiteer want to drop the following in the middle of an idyllic piece of the California countryside? Glad you asked ...
Blackwater intends to build another of its private city states consisting of 824 acres, replete with 360 staff and students, 15 firing ranges, a helipad and a heavy vehicle operator's course the length of 10 football fields.
Not surprisingly, the mercenary company is meeting some resistance, which started with community leaders in the small town but is now growing into a state-wide campaign.
The video to your right is a report -- a damning one -- by a local NBC affiliate. Blackwater was none to pleased with the broadcast, and has mobilized (that usually means "hired") an "astro-turf" network to bombard the station with complaints about how the report was un-American, anti-Capitalist and whatever else.
If you want to help push back, you can. The good folks at the Courage Campaign have organized a petition, and they're collecting signatures to send to the Governator, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein asking to keep Blackwater's mercenary operations out of California. If you have a minute, consider http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/petition/Blackwater
by Joshua Holland
August 14, 2007.
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/59746/
Things are going gang-busters for Blackwater, the world's premiere private army. They've got a nice chunk of the booming security business in Iraq -- the estimated 180,000 private contractors now exceeds the number of troops in the country and, as Jeremy Scahill points out on the front page, firms like Blackwater are "flush with profits."
But that's only a tiny slice of the pie: Blackwater recently introduced its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly Armored Personnel Carrier; Blackwater Airships is building a remotely-piloted vehicle; the company's global air service, Presidential Airways, holds a secret facility clearance from the DoD -- I'm sure they have nothing to do with any extraordinary rendition -- and the mercenary outfit recently announced that it was starting a private intelligence firm to rival the CIA.
It's a great time to be an unaccountable killer in a three-piece suit!
And the company's training operations are spreading. From its headquarters and primary training facility in North Carolina -- you can get some excellent sniper training there, I hear -- to "Blackwater North" in Mount Carroll, Illinois. And now the firm is trying to open a sprawling new training facility in California.
Specifically, in tiny Potrero, California, a berg in San diego county with a population of fewer than 1,000.
What exactly does the infamous war profiteer want to drop the following in the middle of an idyllic piece of the California countryside? Glad you asked ...
Blackwater intends to build another of its private city states consisting of 824 acres, replete with 360 staff and students, 15 firing ranges, a helipad and a heavy vehicle operator's course the length of 10 football fields.
Not surprisingly, the mercenary company is meeting some resistance, which started with community leaders in the small town but is now growing into a state-wide campaign.
The video to your right is a report -- a damning one -- by a local NBC affiliate. Blackwater was none to pleased with the broadcast, and has mobilized (that usually means "hired") an "astro-turf" network to bombard the station with complaints about how the report was un-American, anti-Capitalist and whatever else.
If you want to help push back, you can. The good folks at the Courage Campaign have organized a petition, and they're collecting signatures to send to the Governator, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein asking to keep Blackwater's mercenary operations out of California. If you have a minute, consider http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/petition/Blackwater
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 22 February 2008, 9:54 pm
Newsweek has removed from their webpage the story of Blackwater mercenaries drawing weapons on US Soldiers. What is of importance here is the gradual empowerment of these paramilitary armies until they can hold US soldiers at gun point in a battlefield. Blackwater has setup http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/59746/ and is being supplied with billions of tax dollars and advanced weapons. Blackwater has the profile of a domestic http://www.fromthewilderness.com/members/100506_insurgent_handbook.shtml
QUOTE
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/12/221349/00
by CTLiberal
Fri Oct 12, 2007 at 08:17:32 PM PDT
Robert Bateman, a US Army Infantry Officer who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, penned a piece in the Chicago Tribune today, titled, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1012contractoroct12,0,4399312.story about Blackwater's out of control practices which twice came close to killing him.
This comes in the wake of Newsweek's story that Blackwater drew their guns on US soldiers, diaried here by MsLibrarian.
As we approached one semi-infamous intersection along the main route used by Blackwater between the International Zone (a.k.a. the Green Zone) and the Ministry of Interior, one of Blackwater's convoys roared through. Apparently, Blackwater's agents did not like the look of us, the main body of cars in front of them. Their response was, to say the least, contrary to the best interests of the United States effort in Iraq. Barreling through in their huge, black armored Suburbans and Expeditions, they drove other cars onto the sidewalk even as they popped off rounds from at least one weapon, though I cannot say if the shots were aimed at us or fired into the sky as a warning. I do know one thing: It enraged me ... and Blackwater is, at least nominally, on our side.
Bateman goes on to talk about how the average Iraqi views these thugs in their SUV's barreling through Baghdad and pushing cars onto sidewalks. What is more important to Iraqi's than Islam is honor, because "...Being dishonored, in word or deed, or even by implication, is enough to set the average Iraqi man to plotting his revenge".
Every time Blackwater drives an Iraqi civilian off the road, rams a car with their SUV, or wounds or kills someone, a new enemy of the United States is made. They have shown little regard for Iraqi lives and they are fueling the insurgency and hatred.
All these highly paid, privatized, over zealous, out of control, glorified security guards care about is money. They are not covered by US or Iraqi law, nor military regulations, but instead make up their own rules like was pointed out in Newsweek's October 15th article:
Responsible for guarding top U.S. officials in Iraq, Blackwater operatives are often accused of playing by their own rules. Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."
This is what happens when we link corporate profit to war; you get war crimes and human rights violations.
by CTLiberal
Fri Oct 12, 2007 at 08:17:32 PM PDT
Robert Bateman, a US Army Infantry Officer who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, penned a piece in the Chicago Tribune today, titled, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1012contractoroct12,0,4399312.story about Blackwater's out of control practices which twice came close to killing him.
This comes in the wake of Newsweek's story that Blackwater drew their guns on US soldiers, diaried here by MsLibrarian.
As we approached one semi-infamous intersection along the main route used by Blackwater between the International Zone (a.k.a. the Green Zone) and the Ministry of Interior, one of Blackwater's convoys roared through. Apparently, Blackwater's agents did not like the look of us, the main body of cars in front of them. Their response was, to say the least, contrary to the best interests of the United States effort in Iraq. Barreling through in their huge, black armored Suburbans and Expeditions, they drove other cars onto the sidewalk even as they popped off rounds from at least one weapon, though I cannot say if the shots were aimed at us or fired into the sky as a warning. I do know one thing: It enraged me ... and Blackwater is, at least nominally, on our side.
Bateman goes on to talk about how the average Iraqi views these thugs in their SUV's barreling through Baghdad and pushing cars onto sidewalks. What is more important to Iraqi's than Islam is honor, because "...Being dishonored, in word or deed, or even by implication, is enough to set the average Iraqi man to plotting his revenge".
Every time Blackwater drives an Iraqi civilian off the road, rams a car with their SUV, or wounds or kills someone, a new enemy of the United States is made. They have shown little regard for Iraqi lives and they are fueling the insurgency and hatred.
All these highly paid, privatized, over zealous, out of control, glorified security guards care about is money. They are not covered by US or Iraqi law, nor military regulations, but instead make up their own rules like was pointed out in Newsweek's October 15th article:
Responsible for guarding top U.S. officials in Iraq, Blackwater operatives are often accused of playing by their own rules. Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."
This is what happens when we link corporate profit to war; you get war crimes and human rights violations.
Posted by: lark Saturday, 23 February 2008, 4:14 am
(why do you have a fast reply option in some parts of the forum and not others?)
I've got a big issue with this actually, the Freikorps have been virtually rehabilitated as the acceptable face of fascism and conservatives have no problem allauding to them or aspiring to be like them, there's even been attempts to popularise the cultural underpinnings of the Freikorps with the republication of books like Storm Of Steel.
On the other hand I hear a lot of talk and bluster about this kind of thing from the left but they arent organising to counter it in anyway, I'm prepared for a rerun of events like the Spainish Civil War someday, lots of left wingers, no guns, no supplies, medical experience etc. easily overwhelmed by fascists and the authorities.
Posted by: Rousseau Sunday, 24 February 2008, 9:27 am
I think the problem is that most people of a left-wing leaning or democracy supporters and believers in constitutional and legal civility are completely lacking in the vicious, inbred, hate-filled brutal evil of the drones that trot along to the kind of crypto-fascist propaganda and sinister bullshit that slithers out from these "Minuteman" and self-styled vigilante organisations.
They lack also the military mindset and tend to be well-read and informed, which means being optimistic that other people will eventually see the light and become alert and shuck off their prejudices and paranoia as they lay down their arms.
Tragically, many of these hicks and low intellect drones that make up the minutemen type para-military, as well as many of the ex-soldiers, are indoctrinated with such force and subtlety that the chances of them ever waking up is virtually nil.
The right-wing and the fanatics like Prince are aware of the value of a mindless drone army, their own private SS, and are equally aware that as long as they play the role and use words like "Patriotism" and "Defending America" they can get away with murder. Literally. Having bigots and supporters installed in the highest spheres of political power doesn't hurt, either...
Perhaps with President Obama, we'll see a change in the way Justice looks at these freaks, but I doubt it. They are vicious brutal sadistic thugs with paranoia and supressed racist and fascist tendencies, but they are far from stupid, and know their way around the Law. Just as reverend Phelps and his lunatic followers are convinced that they are on the right track, and are totally right, so these neo-praetorian guard are sure that they are A-OK, and that anyone who threatens their ideas is a commie, or a "Librul" who want's their guns and will turn the US over to the Muslims.
I'm beginning to wonder if anything will ever get through the thick wall of programming, and I don't like the idea of having to wade through the fields of bodies to finally pry the guns out of their cold, dead fingers.
But I don't see that they'll give us any choice.
Posted by: Antifascist Sunday, 24 February 2008, 9:53 am
QUOTE(Rousseau @ Sunday, 24 February 2008, 7:27 am) 
...[Snip]...
Tragically, many of these hicks and low intellect drones that make up the minutemen type para-military, as well as many of the ex-soldiers, are indoctrinated with such force and subtlety that the chances of them ever waking up is virtually nil.
The right-wing and the fanatics like Prince are aware of the value of a mindless drone army, their own private SS, and are equally aware that as long as they play the role and use words like "Patriotism" and "Defending America" they can get away with murder. Literally. Having bigots and supporters installed in the highest spheres of political power doesn't hurt, either...
[Snip]... so these neo-praetorian guard are sure that they are A-OK, and that anyone who threatens their ideas is a commie, or a "Librul" who want's their guns and will turn the US over to the Muslims....[Snip]
Tragically, many of these hicks and low intellect drones that make up the minutemen type para-military, as well as many of the ex-soldiers, are indoctrinated with such force and subtlety that the chances of them ever waking up is virtually nil.
The right-wing and the fanatics like Prince are aware of the value of a mindless drone army, their own private SS, and are equally aware that as long as they play the role and use words like "Patriotism" and "Defending America" they can get away with murder. Literally. Having bigots and supporters installed in the highest spheres of political power doesn't hurt, either...
[Snip]... so these neo-praetorian guard are sure that they are A-OK, and that anyone who threatens their ideas is a commie, or a "Librul" who want's their guns and will turn the US over to the Muslims....[Snip]
"neo-praetorian guard," now that's a good one! I got to remember that term. Good statement of our current situation. The Army and Veterans groups were the two key organizations that gave Hitler his chance. They provided him with an audience, money, training, and a network of hight level contacts that launched his political career. Otherwise, Hitler would have remained a bookish Vienna vagabond.
QUOTE
“The German Army, contrary to its traditions, was now deep in politics, especially in Bavaria, where at last it had established a government to its liking. To further its conservative views it gave the soldiers courses of "political instruction," in one of which Adolf Hitler was an attentive pupil. One day, according to his own story, he intervened during a lecture in which someone had said a good work for the Jews. His anti-Semitic harangue apparently so please his superior officers, a Bildungsoffizier, whose main task was to combat dangerous ideas-pacifism, socialism, democracy; such was the Army's conception of its role in the democratic Republic it had sworn to serve.
This was an important break for Hitler, the first recognition he had won in the field of politics he was now trying to enter. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 35)"
This was an important break for Hitler, the first recognition he had won in the field of politics he was now trying to enter. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 35)"
Posted by: lark Sunday, 24 February 2008, 12:06 pm
Yeah but wasnt Hitler's first bid for power as part of the workers and soldiers councils? An extreme left wing putsch, I'm pretty sure that without a lot of business support which underestimated the imperialist aspect of Hitler's ambition he wouldnt have gotten on the bottom rung of the ladder either.
His army contacts were necessary to put down the worker SA during the night of the long knives as communist aggitators.
Posted by: Antifascist Sunday, 24 February 2008, 1:13 pm
QUOTE(lark @ Sunday, 24 February 2008, 10:06 am)
Yeah but wasnt Hitler's first bid for power as part of the workers and soldiers councils? An extreme left wing putsch, I'm pretty sure that without a lot of business support which underestimated the imperialist aspect of Hitler's ambition he wouldnt have gotten on the bottom rung of the ladder either.
His army contacts were necessary to put down the worker SA during the night of the long knives as communist aggitators.
His army contacts were necessary to put down the worker SA during the night of the long knives as communist aggitators.
His bid for power was in the German Worker's party but it was an extreme right-wing group subsidized by the Army using government funds. Today's NeoCons and Conservatives are trying to write history here and say Hitler was leftwing which is ridiculous. You never hear them quoting William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich because it is absolutely clear that the Nazis were a Right-wing movement competing with the Left-wing movements thus they later, much later, took the name of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or "Nazi Party" (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). There were three major parties in Germany during Hitler's time in Vienna. The Social Democratic party (the had there own purge of leftists), the Christian Socialist, and the Pan-German party which was extremely right-wing and nationalistic. The night of the long knives 1934 came much later and it because the Regular army didn't want anything to do with the SA.
Posted by: lark Sunday, 24 February 2008, 4:06 pm
Yeah but I saw recent documentaries in the UK in which they uncovered evidence that Hitler had been involved with the uprising of the workers and soldiers councils, which I think was put down by the Friekorps, the point they were trying to make was that Hitler wasnt very loyal to any particular political creedo, other than extremism and power, it even documented how he was friendly with left wing jews in the doss houses and crash pads that he was staying at while the was trying to be a bohemian artist. He only discovered the creedo of Ayrianism afterwards, a series of booklets which had been left at one of the houses by a former resident.
The documentaries that I saw and some books that I've read suggested that when a minority within the government Hitler was being bank rolled by private interests, business men other than the army. The point being that far from being a popular force elected by a unanimous vote of the German people Hitler, like the other fascists, was helped to power by a broad coalition of establishment interests who felt threatened by impending or actual crisis and collapse.
Posted by: Don Smith Sunday, 24 February 2008, 4:10 pm
The "socialist" aspect of the N.S.D.A.P. was for popular consumption.
A very large percentage of Hitlers' early party members were former communists and socialists who were angered at the internationalist tone of Marxist politics.
Germany had gone to war with the support of the left parties, patriotism was part of the national attitude, the blood and pain of the war could not be seen as futile.
Hitlers' call for national identity, with foreign and "Jewish" monied interests being driven out were recieved by a populace shocked at the failure of the Imperial system.
Later on, Hitler continued to give lip service to "socialist" ideals, while in fact, he was active in cementing the control of capital in the hands of the same interests that had always controlled the national economy.
Posted by: lark Sunday, 24 February 2008, 4:27 pm
I dont for a moment consider either Hitler or Mussolini or Franco or any of the other notable fascists, for instance Pinochet, to have been very interested in economics at all, I think like most classical or traditional conservatives before them they believed that politics, in particular politics backed up with force, were more important. I view that I agree with, particularly in a crisis or threatened or actual collapse.
However I think it would be wrong to say that in both the instances of Hitler and Mussolini, at least, that the socialist, or rather anti-capitalist, because I dont believe in any sense it could be considered properly speaking socialist, was simply phony. Both regimes were able to use a series of planning instruments and economic controls which ere the envy of left wingers or social democrats the world over.
I would argue also that there were elements within either regime who actively wanted a hybrid between communism and nationalist mythologies, hence the so called "national bolshevism" of Francis Yocker or Yockey at the end of war, not sure of the proper spelling he wrote Imperium and dreamed of a united red-brown alliance against the third world and USA.
The greatest depiction of nazi "socialism" that I've ever seen was in Philip K Dick's The Man In The High Castle, its a very weird book but in it a nazi assasin, product of an "ayrian" breeding program, describes how gargantuan building or industrial projects are taken on by literal industrial armies living a barracks existence, its pretty clear that this is what the authoritarian and military mind understands by socialism, its not what I understand by it but it is one alternative among many to private capitalism.
Posted by: Antifascist Sunday, 24 February 2008, 4:48 pm
QUOTE(lark @ Sunday, 24 February 2008, 2:06 pm)
Yeah but I saw recent documentaries in the UK in which they uncovered evidence that Hitler had been involved with the uprising of the workers and soldiers councils, which I think was put down by the Friekorps, the point they were trying to make was that Hitler wasnt very loyal to any particular political creedo, other than extremism and power, it even documented how he was friendly with left wing jews in the doss houses and crash pads that he was staying at while the was trying to be a bohemian artist. He only discovered the creedo of Ayrianism afterwards, a series of booklets which had been left at one of the houses by a former resident.
The documentaries that I saw and some books that I've read suggested that when a minority within the government Hitler was being bank rolled by private interests, business men other than the army. The point being that far from being a popular force elected by a unanimous vote of the German people Hitler, like the other fascists, was helped to power by a broad coalition of establishment interests who felt threatened by impending or actual crisis and collapse.
The documentaries that I saw and some books that I've read suggested that when a minority within the government Hitler was being bank rolled by private interests, business men other than the army. The point being that far from being a popular force elected by a unanimous vote of the German people Hitler, like the other fascists, was helped to power by a broad coalition of establishment interests who felt threatened by impending or actual crisis and collapse.
I just wanted to make two minor points. The creedo of Ayrianism was wide spread in Germany and popularized by a number of writers--these theories were like diet books today--they were everywhere and everyone was talking about racial theory. A Englishman named http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Stewart_Chamberlain(actually related to Neville) wrote a huge 1400 page book on the Jews, and Teutonic races entitled "Foundations. (1899)" It was weird. Huston claimed to be processed by demons when writing. Also, there was of all people, a Frenchman named http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_de_Gobineau who preached the superiority of the Ayrian races. Germany had clubs that centered on this Frenchman's racial theory the the Germans loved it. Actually, the theory held it was only the northern Germans that were pure and Ayrian while the southern Germans were contaminated but this part of the theory was suppressed by the Nationalist. Its' important to say that Hilter took the ideologies floating around Germany at the time and he only "applied" it originally. Hilter was no dummy. This is a common misconception. He was shrewd and out maneuvered some very cleaver people.
The Army and business interest deliberately caused the economy to collapse and caused hyperinflation to avoid paying war retributions and for business to rewrite business contracts paid by inflated worthless money. They wanted the Republic (establish by the allies by treaty) dead. The Army was a state within a state and they wanted to destroy the Republican state and the Social Democrats holding the bag so they could be called part of the "November" traitors. It worked. Hitler used words like "socialism" to attract a mass audience. Hitler knew nothing of economics--it bored him to dead-- and in fact Mein Kampf has almost no economic theory or plan. He though economics would take care of itself like the NeoLiberal economists of today.
Here is an interesting passage in William Shirer's book about Hitler's economic theories. I think you will recognize the talking points.
QUOTE
“By 1931, Walther Funk….a greasy, shifty-eyed, paunchy little man whose face always reminded this writer [William Shirer] of a frog, gave up a lucrative job as editor of a leading German financial newspaper job as editor of a leading German financial newspaper, the Berliner Boersenzeitung, joined the Nazi Party and became a contact man between the party and a number of important business leaders….several of his industrialist friends...had urged him ot join the Nazi movement “in order to persuade the party of follow the course of private enterprise.”
At that time the leadership of the party held completely contradictory and confused views on economic policy. I tried to accomplish my mission by personally impressing on the Fuehrer and the party that private initiative, self-reliance of the businessman, the creative powers of free enterprise, et cetera, be recognized as the basic economic policy of the party. The Fuehrer personally stressed time and again during talks with me and industrial leaders to whom I had introduced him, that he was an enemy of state economy and of so-callled “planned economy” and that he considered free enterprise and competition as absolutely necessary in order to gain the highest possible production.(Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 143 ) "
At that time the leadership of the party held completely contradictory and confused views on economic policy. I tried to accomplish my mission by personally impressing on the Fuehrer and the party that private initiative, self-reliance of the businessman, the creative powers of free enterprise, et cetera, be recognized as the basic economic policy of the party. The Fuehrer personally stressed time and again during talks with me and industrial leaders to whom I had introduced him, that he was an enemy of state economy and of so-callled “planned economy” and that he considered free enterprise and competition as absolutely necessary in order to gain the highest possible production.(Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 143 ) "
Yes, Don Smith's narrative is right on the mark.
Posted by: lark Sunday, 24 February 2008, 5:20 pm
I've got to agree that one thing that fascists and most neo-liberals have in common is ignorance of economics or economics besides the ideological brand of Hayek, Mises etc.
Its a very controversial point the extent to which there were cross overs or similarities between some of the popular teutonic or ayrianist theories and those of the zionist camp but its something that I've been researching for a while, even if there werent cross overs or similarities at the time contemporary neo-nazis dont mind making the connections, suggesting that if Israel is acceptable as an ethno-nationalist state then their own efforts to establish ethnic intentional communities or states are also legitimate.
Although I remember reading about how some of the neo-nazi factions arising from euro-paganism, the "tolerant" and "peaceable", "voluntaristic" nazis who want to conserve ethnicities like endangered animal species, owe some inspiration to ethnic idenity politics like native americans, back to africa groups and also Hinduism or the Indo-European caste system.
The inferiority divisions between Germans woudlnt surprise me because most in-group, out-group politics will further sub-divide and sub-divide ad infinitum and Hitler was the model of the non-aryian German, brown eyes, brown hair, shorter in stature etc.
Posted by: Don Smith Sunday, 24 February 2008, 10:39 pm
In a search for the literature of these mercenary groups, I am hard pressed to find much about the moral[i] aspects of their training. Some sort of ethical unity must be part of any combat arms group, and this side of training should not be ignored by prospective officers.
Unless, of course, the entire outfit is nothing more than a gang of psychotic rapists, only driven by greed and appetite.
Posted by: Rousseau Monday, 25 February 2008, 2:19 am
Hi Anti, this French guy ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_de_Gobineau
He was an inspirational influence on the nazi racial programs, and a lot of his influence is still felt in France, again, a subtle undercurrent in the very rich and the very poor, but rarely in the middle-classes.
Although France used to have a far more egalitarian society, sadly this is breaking down as the poverty gap widens and the solidarity that used to be such a bulkwark of French civilisation fades into the background drone of neoliberalism.
Don, have you read Scahill's book on Blackwater ?
I would guess as well that it's the kind of discreet indoctrination, and a subtle entry into the echalons, much like any secret society. Nothing overt, just insinuation, like breadcrumbs leading to a lair. You are free to follow them, or simply to do the job you're paid for, no more. But when the crunch comes, you'll be on the outer circle, whereas those who followed the crumbs will be licking their whiskers in the inner sanctum.
This kind of thing is like the klan, like the Freemasons and other secret or semi-secret societies. On one face, you have the superficial surface, either jolly and innocuous, or brutal and smirking, but the reverse of the coin is the real face of the beast, but casual outsiders never get to see this, and to go in and under deep, you need to be part of the sickness, or a very, very good actor.
Posted by: Jubal Monday, 25 February 2008, 6:46 am
QUOTE(Rousseau @ Sunday, 24 February 2008, 10:27 am)
I think the problem is that most people of a left-wing leaning or democracy supporters and believers in constitutional and legal civility are completely lacking in the vicious, inbred, hate-filled brutal evil of the drones that trot along to the kind of crypto-fascist propaganda and sinister bullshit that slithers out from these "Minuteman" and self-styled vigilante organisations.
The most liberal administration in decades gave us Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Posted by: Antifascist Monday, 25 February 2008, 9:41 am
That's the guy Rousseau! "Arthur De Gobineau."
Posted by: Rousseau Monday, 25 February 2008, 9:46 am
Mmmm, Jubal, yeeeess.....but.
I have a hard time in seeing how it could have been handled differently. Actually, of course it could have been, but again, it goes back to the people behind the scenes...
Regardless of what admin was roosting in the Powerhouse, the way the events panned out would have done so under GOP or Dem.
The fact that the US has crazed bands of these heavily armed suicide and "End 'O Times" cults trotting around is disturbing enough, although legal.
No-one, unfortunately, says the Government is responsable for ensuring that all it's citizens are well educated and sane...
Posted by: happymisanthropy Monday, 25 February 2008, 9:51 am
QUOTE(Jubal @ Monday, 25 February 2008, 4:46 am)
The most liberal administration in decades gave us Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Ruby Ridge, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
Waco, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
1) Ruby Ridge happened BEFORE Waco.
2) Are you brainwashed, or are you trying to brainwash us?
3) Who was president in 1992?
Posted by: Jubal Monday, 25 February 2008, 10:02 am
QUOTE(happymisanthropy @ Monday, 25 February 2008, 10:51 am)
Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Ruby Ridge, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
Waco, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
1) Ruby Ridge happened BEFORE Waco.
2) Are you brainwashed, or are you trying to brainwash us?
3) Who was president in 1992?
Ruby Ridge, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge
Waco, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
1) Ruby Ridge happened BEFORE Waco.
2) Are you brainwashed, or are you trying to brainwash us?
3) Who was president in 1992?
Point conceded. My bad.
To answer Rousseau, the best alternative for Waco would have been to leave them the hell alone, considering that ATF went in on the thinnest of pretexts. Once they decided to go in, maybe the best way to do it would have been to snap up Koresh on one of his daily runs outside of the "compound." Once they screwed that pooch, how's this sound? Build a chain-link fence around the compound. Guard it. Wait.
I have a hard time seeing any alternative that could possibly have been as bad as giving military equipment to people not trained to use it, unless it was using tear-gas rounds clearly labeled "NOT FOR INDOOR USE" in big yellow letters on the canisters.
Posted by: happymisanthropy Monday, 25 February 2008, 10:20 am
QUOTE(Jubal @ Monday, 25 February 2008, 8:02 am)
Point conceded. My bad.
Google:
"waco and ruby ridge" 16,500 hits
"ruby ridge and waco" 12,200 hits
I'm surprised the difference is that small, actually. It seems like radical conservatives deliberately misstate the chronology in order to get people to unconscously make the mistake Jubal did. But that's just me and my
Posted by: Jubal Monday, 25 February 2008, 10:22 am
QUOTE(happymisanthropy @ Monday, 25 February 2008, 11:20 am)
Google:
"waco and ruby ridge" 16,500 hits
"ruby ridge and waco" 12,200 hits
I'm surprised the difference is that small, actually. It seems like radical conservatives deliberately misstate the chronology in order to get people to unconscously make the mistake Jubal did. But that's just me and my
"waco and ruby ridge" 16,500 hits
"ruby ridge and waco" 12,200 hits
I'm surprised the difference is that small, actually. It seems like radical conservatives deliberately misstate the chronology in order to get people to unconscously make the mistake Jubal did. But that's just me and my
Could be. If you believe there's a "vast right-wing conspiracy." A possible alternative is that they're listing the higher-death event first. If I was asked to list "disasters of the 20th century," I'd probably go biggest-to-smallest, not first-to-last.
Posted by: Don Smith Monday, 25 February 2008, 11:13 am
What I was looking for was some sort of assesment of the combat ability of these high priced troops. Most "political' troops have a low value in operational warfare. Lacking the tactical and procedural training, they tend to break easily and are seldom of value in the field against a skilled opponent.
Hitler and Stalin discovered this a number of times in WWII when they sent one or another palace guard units to the front. Some of these units were broken beyond repair and some became useful after a time of learning and operations.
For the cost, these mercenaries seem to be no more than an extravagant way to assert power and terror among the populace. The exact numbers in Iraq are hard to pin down, much less the amounts of money being lavished upon them.
Posted by: Rousseau Tuesday, 26 February 2008, 4:37 am
Don, this is a link-filled article.
http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=11750
There are anywhere between 130 000 mercenaries and 150 000 in Iraq, but actual combat mercs may be less. The rest are just the logistics staff of the war profiteers.
"Asphalt soldiers" can be a mixed bag. The Waffen SS, at first less well equiped than the Wermacht and carrying the dubious reputation as "square-bashers" and "political soldiers" became the most feared and effective armed force in WWII, pioneering tactics and sheer courage on the Eastern Front that led to German Generals comparing
one SS Division to 4 Army divisions.
The entire course of the war may have reversed if the SS had been used better, and the American forces coming ashore at Omaha Beach may have never left the bloody sands had the 2nd SS Panzer division arrived in time.
The "Leibstandarte AH", with such men as Sepp Deitrich and Battlegroup Pfeiffer were arguably the elite of the German forces, and it was only the stupidity and insanity of hitler, and the destruction of his factories coupled with his imperial over-reach, that stopped their elan.
The fanaticism and indoctrination of these units, as well as the revolutionary breaking down of the former officer-caste system has changed forever modern warfare.
Many of the elite units of all the world armies use Waffen-SS training and structure.
So politically-motivated troops are as fierce as religiously motivated troops, obviously depending on the brainwashing. Often they can be more effective, because there is a sense of fluidity in the chain of command, and intelligence is praised and rewarded, whereas religious indoctrination tends to favor blind faith and fervor over individual implication and comradeship.
Proof was that the SS, in the dying stages of the war, were still recruiting from non-Aryan stock, many units of which distinguished themselves militarily. Brutal and vicious, of course, but war is not a picnic.
I'd rather face religiously motivated "enemies" than politically motivated ones. There is a predictability and compulsiveness in their actions, as well as a suicidal taint that ideologically-motivated troops don't have.
Financially motivated forces are the easiest to defeat, because they have only fiscal stakes in the combat, and can be bought off or will break and flee if the opposition outguns them.
Hence the danger of Blackwater, because it's a mix of all three....
Posted by: Don Smith Sunday, 2 March 2008, 1:11 pm
Thanks for the link.
I was aware of the S.S. being the most solid of the Nazi troops, the instances I was writing about were when N.K.V.D. troops broke under fire early in the war and the use of S.S. training brigades in Italy.
In both cases the troops were not "seasoned" at all, and were thrown into combat with little tactical preparation.
Blackwater seems to be able to run over civilians and shoot up market squares, I do not know if they are to be relied upon in a combat arms situation.
Posted by: Jubal Sunday, 2 March 2008, 1:19 pm
QUOTE(Don Smith @ Sunday, 2 March 2008, 2:11 pm)
Thanks for the link.
I was aware of the S.S. being the most solid of the Nazi troops, the instances I was writing about were when N.K.V.D. troops broke under fire early in the war and the use of S.S. training brigades in Italy.
In both cases the troops were not "seasoned" at all, and were thrown into combat with little tactical preparation.
Blackwater seems to be able to run over civilians and shoot up market squares, I do not know if they are to be relied upon in a combat arms situation.
I was aware of the S.S. being the most solid of the Nazi troops, the instances I was writing about were when N.K.V.D. troops broke under fire early in the war and the use of S.S. training brigades in Italy.
In both cases the troops were not "seasoned" at all, and were thrown into combat with little tactical preparation.
Blackwater seems to be able to run over civilians and shoot up market squares, I do not know if they are to be relied upon in a combat arms situation.
Most of the Blackwater guys are pretty hard. Well trained and often combat veterans.
I don't respect them, but I do fear them.
Posted by: sky of mind Sunday, 2 March 2008, 1:21 pm
QUOTE(Jubal @ Sunday, 2 March 2008, 11:19 am)
Most of the Blackwater guys are pretty hard. Well trained and often combat veterans.
I don't respect them, but I do fear them.
I don't respect them, but I do fear them.
What sort of command structure do these Blackwater guys have?
Or are they more like engineers with black SUV's and lots of guns?
Posted by: Antifascist Thursday, 3 April 2008, 4:09 pm
The Army and Veterans groups were the two key organizations that gave Hitler his chance. They provided him with an audience, money, training, and a network of hight level contacts that launched his political career. Otherwise, Hitler would have remained a bookish Vienna vagabond.
QUOTE
“The German Army, contrary to its traditions, was now deep in politics, especially in Bavaria, where at last it had established a government to its liking. To further its conservative views it gave the soldiers courses of "political instruction," in one of which Adolf Hitler was an attentive pupil. One day, according to his own story, he intervened during a lecture in which someone had said a good work for the Jews. His anti-Semitic harangue apparently so please his superior officers, a Bildungsoffizier, whose main task was to combat dangerous ideas-pacifism, socialism, democracy; such was the Army's conception of its role in the democratic Republic it had sworn to serve.
This was an important break for Hitler, the first recognition he had won in the field of politics he was now trying to enter....
...Such was the weird assortment of misfits who founded National Socialism, who unknowingly began to shape a movement which in thirteen years would sweep the country, the strongest in Europe, and bring to Germany its Third Reich. The confused locksmith Drexler provided the kernel, the drunken poet Eckart some of the “spiritual” foundation, the economic crank Drexler what passed as an ideology, the homosexual Roehm the support of the Army and the war veterans, but it was now the former tramp, Adolf Hitler, not quite thirty-one and utterly unknown, who took the lead in building up what had been no more than a back-room debating society into what would soon become a formidable political party. ….(Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 35-39)"
This was an important break for Hitler, the first recognition he had won in the field of politics he was now trying to enter....
...Such was the weird assortment of misfits who founded National Socialism, who unknowingly began to shape a movement which in thirteen years would sweep the country, the strongest in Europe, and bring to Germany its Third Reich. The confused locksmith Drexler provided the kernel, the drunken poet Eckart some of the “spiritual” foundation, the economic crank Drexler what passed as an ideology, the homosexual Roehm the support of the Army and the war veterans, but it was now the former tramp, Adolf Hitler, not quite thirty-one and utterly unknown, who took the lead in building up what had been no more than a back-room debating society into what would soon become a formidable political party. ….(Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 35-39)"
And so here we have the same pattern. The patriotic counter protesters are also a motorcycle gang and ex-military personnel--veterans. So they can provide the "muscle" if needed as sort of a quasi-security force if things get out of hand. Gangs are Okay if they show their "colors" and "roar" for the state. The gang theme is a psychops technique designed to intimidate political dissidents.
The press does its part by presenting the motorcycle gang as a just ordinary citizens expressing there political views. Most Americans total missing the similarity to the role veterans groups played in pre-Nazi Germany forming a spectrum of political groups of which Hilter's faction was only one.
QUOTE
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/23/BAL5VOTU9.DTL
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 23, 2008
(03-22) 15:20 PDT BERKELEY -- Berkeley hosted a decidedly different kind of protest Saturday when about 400 flag-waving, leather-clad, pro-troops bikers roared into town to show their support for an often besieged Marine recruiting center in the city.
"I'm here because I support my Marines," said Steve Bosshard, a retired San Francisco police officer who came from Santa Rosa. "I don't like what Berkeley's done. They don't realize the effect it has on the troops."
The center was criticized by the Berkeley City Council and is often the target of protests.
Saturday's demonstrators, most of whom were veterans or families of those currently in the military, said they were protesting the council's decision in February to waive the amplified-sound permit fees and provide reserved parking in front of the Marines' office for Code Pink, an anti-war group that stages protests at the center.
Saturday's protesters gathered at the recruiting station and sang the Marine Corps hymn and national anthem, revved their motorcycles and waved flags. A small contingent from Code Pink stood on the fringes, having mostly peaceful conversations with their pro-Marine counterparts.
There were no arrests by Saturday afternoon.
The demonstrators said they plan to boycott Berkeley businesses until the council is recalled, apologizes or grants free permits to a pro-troop group.
The group that organized the protest, Eagles Up, had to pay for their permit.
The gathering outnumbered Wednesday's anti-war demonstration at the center, marking the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.
"We're going to stop giving any business to Berkeley and Alameda County, said Brian Dennard, a San Diego businessman at Saturday's rally. "We want to bankrupt this city."
Berkeley merchants said they weren't overly fazed by the boycott.
"It hasn't affected me at all, not one bit," said Tim Barnard, owner of Pie in the Sky pizza restaurant on Center Street. "We've been busy the whole time, even during the Code Pink protests."
Eagles Up members said they were going to collect their receipts from the weekend and present them to Berkeley City Hall, demonstrating how much money the city lost due to the boycott.
Berkeley residents making their way through the flag-waving crowd were mostly unimpressed by the protest.
"I'm against the war, but this is fine," said Davis Beekman of Berkeley. "It's a spectacle, a good photo op."
Recent Cal graduate Brendan Kussman said he was heartened by the protest.
"I think Code Pink has pissed off a lot of people," said Kussman, a theater major. "But overall, I think it's great we're in a country where people can come out and do this."
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 23, 2008
(03-22) 15:20 PDT BERKELEY -- Berkeley hosted a decidedly different kind of protest Saturday when about 400 flag-waving, leather-clad, pro-troops bikers roared into town to show their support for an often besieged Marine recruiting center in the city.
"I'm here because I support my Marines," said Steve Bosshard, a retired San Francisco police officer who came from Santa Rosa. "I don't like what Berkeley's done. They don't realize the effect it has on the troops."
The center was criticized by the Berkeley City Council and is often the target of protests.
Saturday's demonstrators, most of whom were veterans or families of those currently in the military, said they were protesting the council's decision in February to waive the amplified-sound permit fees and provide reserved parking in front of the Marines' office for Code Pink, an anti-war group that stages protests at the center.
Saturday's protesters gathered at the recruiting station and sang the Marine Corps hymn and national anthem, revved their motorcycles and waved flags. A small contingent from Code Pink stood on the fringes, having mostly peaceful conversations with their pro-Marine counterparts.
There were no arrests by Saturday afternoon.
The demonstrators said they plan to boycott Berkeley businesses until the council is recalled, apologizes or grants free permits to a pro-troop group.
The group that organized the protest, Eagles Up, had to pay for their permit.
The gathering outnumbered Wednesday's anti-war demonstration at the center, marking the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.
"We're going to stop giving any business to Berkeley and Alameda County, said Brian Dennard, a San Diego businessman at Saturday's rally. "We want to bankrupt this city."
Berkeley merchants said they weren't overly fazed by the boycott.
"It hasn't affected me at all, not one bit," said Tim Barnard, owner of Pie in the Sky pizza restaurant on Center Street. "We've been busy the whole time, even during the Code Pink protests."
Eagles Up members said they were going to collect their receipts from the weekend and present them to Berkeley City Hall, demonstrating how much money the city lost due to the boycott.
Berkeley residents making their way through the flag-waving crowd were mostly unimpressed by the protest.
"I'm against the war, but this is fine," said Davis Beekman of Berkeley. "It's a spectacle, a good photo op."
Recent Cal graduate Brendan Kussman said he was heartened by the protest.
"I think Code Pink has pissed off a lot of people," said Kussman, a theater major. "But overall, I think it's great we're in a country where people can come out and do this."
Posted by: Abell9 Thursday, 3 April 2008, 7:27 pm
QUOTE (Jubal @ Sunday, 2 March 2008, 2:19 pm)
Most of the Blackwater guys are pretty hard. Well trained and often combat veterans.
I don't respect them, but I do fear them.
I don't respect them, but I do fear them.
Well, no need to fear them though you would be incredibly surprized at the level of competance, humor, and just straight up good guys. While some and I say "some" with a pretty high level of expertise, have some pretty harsh opinions of politics, some are as polarized as some of you, and strange as it may seem, some agree with a Liberal mindset. Most dont see the war, themselves, or the current administration as anything but temporary. That would be on a individual level. Many disagree with the entire concept of being in IRAQ but here is where it will rub you. These men come from jobs that paid 18-50,000 a year in the Special Forces, Rangers, Seals, Para Rescue, Force Recon, and even some plain infantry types. All of a sudden, they are offered 14-20,000 a month to Guard a compound, a person, a convoy? Yep, they do it. It pays off a house, a car, an education, a honeymoon...other things. Very normal people by most standards. Just happen to be very good at the gun thang.
QUOTE
What sort of command structure do these Blackwater guys have?
Or are they more like engineers with black SUV's and lots of guns?
Or are they more like engineers with black SUV's and lots of guns?
Reasonable question. Internal chain of command not totally unlike the Military. Though Director, Supervisor, and other civilian monikers are used. Most, extremely good, competant, and mission serious. They are well paid to do it right.
They, as a general rule are not hoodlums, gun slingers, or blatant idiots with guns. Deadly...yes. Serious about survival? Yes. Make mistakes...yea...it happens. And///people are fired EVERY day for stupid actions, inhumane actions, even just acting stupid with a gun actions. Their internal police mechanisms are pretty well set. They DO NOT put up with stupid gunslinger mentalities. ROE have changed and needed to.
Give this as much credence as you see fit. Not once, EVER have I seen evidence that any of these organizations buy into, support, or identify with any master plan that even smells like what AF describes. Some are Repub's, some are Dems, some are Moderates, some don't care one way or the other. They are Alpha in many ways but most I ever saw have a financial goal in mind, not a political one.
You would be surprized at the level of intelligence, reasonable thinking, compassionate beliefs, and reality based minds preesent. Overall, Id say many have seriously misjudged them, most have no clue what they are about and for damned sure, the press got it wrong.
And to compare or even use these names in the same sentence with f*cking hate club idiots such as mentioned...not even close. Miles and miles apart. Nice white knuckled theory maybe...but untrue.
Posted by: Antifascist Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 9:46 am
QUOTE
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2549
Controversy: Mercenaries Training US Local Police Officers
By Jim Kouri Tuesday, April 8, 2008
There are many police and law enforcement officials who are concerned with the growing trend of using military-trained mercenaries to train and work with local police officers in the United States, but there are many who believe the events of September 11, 2001 dictate the need for a new paradigm.
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties.
Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
But Lexington isn’t the only city using hired guns to help local police officers. In New Orleans, heavily armed operatives from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of that beleaguered city.
Some of the mercenaries were reportedly “deputized” by the Louisiana governor and were issued gold Louisiana State law enforcement badges to wear on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards to be worn on their arms.
While they are working in Louisiana, Blackwater officials say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force if necessary. Some of the mercenaries assigned to patrol the streets of New Orleans recently returned from Iraq, where they provided personal security details for the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.
Blackwater, which is based in North Carolina, is one of the leading private security companies providing security personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with other companies such as Wackenhut Security, Inc., it has several lucrative US government contracts and provides security services—including bodyguard work—for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations.
The company received international exposure when several of its security officers were captured, tortured and killed in Fallujah; two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004.
Although many politicos are saying Blackwater is not performing police functions, their own statement seems to imply that they will provide whatever services a government—federal, state and local—desires.
“Man-made and natural disasters require an immediate robust response. Blackwater Worldwide’s extensive training facility and staff of former military and law enforcement professionals can provide the needed training and operational expertise to prepare security teams to effectively support state and federal emergency response units,” according to Blackwater’s mission statement.
“I’m troubled by the use of military personnel—whether they be US soldiers or private mercenaries—performing a police or law enforcement function. While they may be experts in fighting wars, they are not constrained by the US Constitution as to how they operate as cops,” said former NYPD detective and owner of FLT Security Services, Sidney Francis.
“Soldiers are soldiers and cops are cops. What’s next? Using smart bombs to crash into drug dens?” he asked.
Since its inception in 2003, the US Department of Homeland Security has faced significant challenges related to recruiting, retaining, and managing its workforce of over 170,000 employees.
Recently, the US Congress requested the Government Accountability Office to analyze DHS’s attrition, efforts to recruit and retain staff, use of external employees such as officers from private companies, and compliance with certain provisions of the Vacancies Reform Act, which requires agencies to report to Congress and the Comptroller General vacancies in certain presidentially-appointed positions requiring Senate confirmation.
While DHS’s overall attrition rate for permanent employees (excluding those in the Senior Executive Service and presidential appointments) declined from 8.4 percent in 2005 to 7.1 percent in 2006.
These rates, which were still above the roughly 4 percent average rate for all cabinet-level agencies, were affected by high levels of attrition (about 14-17 percent) among transportation security officers at DHS’s Transportation Security Administration. With the security officers excluded, DHS’s attrition rate was 3.3 percent.
DHS implemented agreements under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, allowing nonfederal employees—private contractors—to be temporarily assigned to a federal agency to meet mission needs.
Controversy: Mercenaries Training US Local Police Officers
By Jim Kouri Tuesday, April 8, 2008
There are many police and law enforcement officials who are concerned with the growing trend of using military-trained mercenaries to train and work with local police officers in the United States, but there are many who believe the events of September 11, 2001 dictate the need for a new paradigm.
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties.
Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
But Lexington isn’t the only city using hired guns to help local police officers. In New Orleans, heavily armed operatives from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of that beleaguered city.
Some of the mercenaries were reportedly “deputized” by the Louisiana governor and were issued gold Louisiana State law enforcement badges to wear on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards to be worn on their arms.
While they are working in Louisiana, Blackwater officials say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force if necessary. Some of the mercenaries assigned to patrol the streets of New Orleans recently returned from Iraq, where they provided personal security details for the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.
Blackwater, which is based in North Carolina, is one of the leading private security companies providing security personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with other companies such as Wackenhut Security, Inc., it has several lucrative US government contracts and provides security services—including bodyguard work—for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations.
The company received international exposure when several of its security officers were captured, tortured and killed in Fallujah; two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004.
Although many politicos are saying Blackwater is not performing police functions, their own statement seems to imply that they will provide whatever services a government—federal, state and local—desires.
“Man-made and natural disasters require an immediate robust response. Blackwater Worldwide’s extensive training facility and staff of former military and law enforcement professionals can provide the needed training and operational expertise to prepare security teams to effectively support state and federal emergency response units,” according to Blackwater’s mission statement.
“I’m troubled by the use of military personnel—whether they be US soldiers or private mercenaries—performing a police or law enforcement function. While they may be experts in fighting wars, they are not constrained by the US Constitution as to how they operate as cops,” said former NYPD detective and owner of FLT Security Services, Sidney Francis.
“Soldiers are soldiers and cops are cops. What’s next? Using smart bombs to crash into drug dens?” he asked.
Since its inception in 2003, the US Department of Homeland Security has faced significant challenges related to recruiting, retaining, and managing its workforce of over 170,000 employees.
Recently, the US Congress requested the Government Accountability Office to analyze DHS’s attrition, efforts to recruit and retain staff, use of external employees such as officers from private companies, and compliance with certain provisions of the Vacancies Reform Act, which requires agencies to report to Congress and the Comptroller General vacancies in certain presidentially-appointed positions requiring Senate confirmation.
While DHS’s overall attrition rate for permanent employees (excluding those in the Senior Executive Service and presidential appointments) declined from 8.4 percent in 2005 to 7.1 percent in 2006.
These rates, which were still above the roughly 4 percent average rate for all cabinet-level agencies, were affected by high levels of attrition (about 14-17 percent) among transportation security officers at DHS’s Transportation Security Administration. With the security officers excluded, DHS’s attrition rate was 3.3 percent.
DHS implemented agreements under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, allowing nonfederal employees—private contractors—to be temporarily assigned to a federal agency to meet mission needs.
Posted by: Rousseau Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 10:42 am
Thanks, Abell.
It helps to have a different, and inside, view sometimes.
You can see the danger, though, of a neo-praetorian guard led by an avowed religious zealot, though, no ? Especially tied in tight with the zealots that prooted forth the PNAC plan for destroying the planet.
Posted by: Antifascist Saturday, 26 April 2008, 8:53 pm
Duplicate deleted.
Posted by: Antifascist Tuesday, 6 May 2008, 10:04 am
Posted by: Antifascist Monday, 23 June 2008, 8:17 pm
Right-wing paramilitary group, BlackWater, uses "straw purchases" to stockpile assault weapons with the cooperation of local police department.
QUOTE
http://www.newsobserver.com/917/story/1116379.html
Joseph Neff, Staff WriterComment on this story
The private military company Blackwater has found an unusual way to skirt federal laws that prohibit private parties from buying automatic weapons. Blackwater bought 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmasters, gave ownership of the guns to the Camden County sheriff and keeps most of the guns at Blackwater's armory in Moyock.
Tiny Camden County -- population 9,271 -- is one of the most peaceful in North Carolina. In the last 10 years, there have been two murders, three robberies and seven rapes reported. The sheriff has just 19 deputies.
Sheriff Tony Perry said his department has never used the 17 AK-47s outside of shooting practice at Blackwater. None of his 19 deputies are qualified to use the AK-47s, Perry said, and his department's need for automatic weapons is "very minimal."
In the summer of 2005, Blackwater CEO Gary Jackson signed two agreements with Maj. Jon Worthington of the Sheriff's Office. Worthington has worked as a firearms instructor for Blackwater.
"Blackwater has financed the purchase of 17 Romanian AK-47 rifles for the Camden County Sheriff's Office for use by Sheriff's Office," the agreement says. "The Camden County Sheriff's Office will have unlimited access to these rifles for training and qualification, and state of emergency use." Worthington and Jackson also signed an agreement for the purchase of 17 Bushmaster XM15 E2S automatic rifles.
Why did Blackwater strike this deal with the Camden County sheriff?
"Because they needed guns, I imagine," Jackson said.
Jackson said Blackwater was a good corporate citizen that provided equipment and training, often free, to local law enforcement.
Did Camden County need more automatic weapons than deputies?
"They are very well equipped," Jackson said.
Perry said he can't remember who came up with the idea for the weapons deal. He said the county was trying to put together a SWAT team at the time.
Not the best choice?
The AK-47 would be a poor choice of weapon for a SWAT team, said John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, the national organization of SWAT officers.
As a combat weapon, the AK-47 is too large and powerful for SWAT teams, Gnagey said. It is rugged but relatively inaccurate.
"And there's the perception problem," Gnagey said. "Every terrorist attacking the U.S. is armed with AK-47s. "
Most SWAT teams use the H&K MP5 submachine gun or the Bushmaster M4, he said.
Under federal law, only government agencies -- military or law enforcement -- are allowed to acquire and possess automatic weapons. There is an exception for automatic weapons purchased before May 1986, when the law went into effect.
Firearms dealers are allowed, under strict conditions, to acquire an automatic weapon if they need to demonstrate the weapon to a police department or other government agency interested in buying the weapon.
Under federal law, it is illegal for a person to receive or possess an automatic weapon that is not registered to that person in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. The 34 weapons are registered to the Camden County sheriff. Seventeen AK-47s and five Bushmasters are stored and used at Blackwater. The other 12 Bushmasters are assigned to Camden County deputies, the sheriff said.
Weapons' use defended
Jackson, the Blackwater CEO, said he was not violating federal firearms law.
"I don't believe so," Jackson said. "As long as I have contracts, I can buy fully automatic weapons."
Jackson and Erik Prince, Blackwater's owner, said Blackwater used the AK-47s in training to familiarize police officers or members of the military with a foreign weapon that they might come across while making an arrest or on a battlefield.
Blackwater may also use the AK-47s to train military personnel from other countries who come to the United States for anti-terrorism training funded by the State Department, Prince and Jackson said.
"If the contract tells us to, we do it," Jackson said.
The agreement between Blackwater and the Sheriff's Office could be an illegal straw purchase, said Richard Myers, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A straw purchase, Myers said, is when one person fills out the federal firearms registration form to obtain a weapon for another person's use.
"I prosecuted several when I was with the U.S. attorney," Myers said. "If I were Blackwater's attorney, I would be concerned about whether this is a genuine purchase or a straw purchase."
Sheriff Perry said he did not consult a lawyer about the agreement until recently, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI inquired about the arrangement. Last year two former Blackwater employees pleaded guilty to federal firearms violations. They were sentenced to probation on the condition that they assist federal investigators.
Perry said his department was cooperating fully.
"We're not a target," Perry said. "We may be a victim in it."
joseph.neff@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4516
Joseph Neff, Staff WriterComment on this story
The private military company Blackwater has found an unusual way to skirt federal laws that prohibit private parties from buying automatic weapons. Blackwater bought 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmasters, gave ownership of the guns to the Camden County sheriff and keeps most of the guns at Blackwater's armory in Moyock.
Tiny Camden County -- population 9,271 -- is one of the most peaceful in North Carolina. In the last 10 years, there have been two murders, three robberies and seven rapes reported. The sheriff has just 19 deputies.
Sheriff Tony Perry said his department has never used the 17 AK-47s outside of shooting practice at Blackwater. None of his 19 deputies are qualified to use the AK-47s, Perry said, and his department's need for automatic weapons is "very minimal."
In the summer of 2005, Blackwater CEO Gary Jackson signed two agreements with Maj. Jon Worthington of the Sheriff's Office. Worthington has worked as a firearms instructor for Blackwater.
"Blackwater has financed the purchase of 17 Romanian AK-47 rifles for the Camden County Sheriff's Office for use by Sheriff's Office," the agreement says. "The Camden County Sheriff's Office will have unlimited access to these rifles for training and qualification, and state of emergency use." Worthington and Jackson also signed an agreement for the purchase of 17 Bushmaster XM15 E2S automatic rifles.
Why did Blackwater strike this deal with the Camden County sheriff?
"Because they needed guns, I imagine," Jackson said.
Jackson said Blackwater was a good corporate citizen that provided equipment and training, often free, to local law enforcement.
Did Camden County need more automatic weapons than deputies?
"They are very well equipped," Jackson said.
Perry said he can't remember who came up with the idea for the weapons deal. He said the county was trying to put together a SWAT team at the time.
Not the best choice?
The AK-47 would be a poor choice of weapon for a SWAT team, said John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, the national organization of SWAT officers.
As a combat weapon, the AK-47 is too large and powerful for SWAT teams, Gnagey said. It is rugged but relatively inaccurate.
"And there's the perception problem," Gnagey said. "Every terrorist attacking the U.S. is armed with AK-47s. "
Most SWAT teams use the H&K MP5 submachine gun or the Bushmaster M4, he said.
Under federal law, only government agencies -- military or law enforcement -- are allowed to acquire and possess automatic weapons. There is an exception for automatic weapons purchased before May 1986, when the law went into effect.
Firearms dealers are allowed, under strict conditions, to acquire an automatic weapon if they need to demonstrate the weapon to a police department or other government agency interested in buying the weapon.
Under federal law, it is illegal for a person to receive or possess an automatic weapon that is not registered to that person in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. The 34 weapons are registered to the Camden County sheriff. Seventeen AK-47s and five Bushmasters are stored and used at Blackwater. The other 12 Bushmasters are assigned to Camden County deputies, the sheriff said.
Weapons' use defended
Jackson, the Blackwater CEO, said he was not violating federal firearms law.
"I don't believe so," Jackson said. "As long as I have contracts, I can buy fully automatic weapons."
Jackson and Erik Prince, Blackwater's owner, said Blackwater used the AK-47s in training to familiarize police officers or members of the military with a foreign weapon that they might come across while making an arrest or on a battlefield.
Blackwater may also use the AK-47s to train military personnel from other countries who come to the United States for anti-terrorism training funded by the State Department, Prince and Jackson said.
"If the contract tells us to, we do it," Jackson said.
The agreement between Blackwater and the Sheriff's Office could be an illegal straw purchase, said Richard Myers, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A straw purchase, Myers said, is when one person fills out the federal firearms registration form to obtain a weapon for another person's use.
"I prosecuted several when I was with the U.S. attorney," Myers said. "If I were Blackwater's attorney, I would be concerned about whether this is a genuine purchase or a straw purchase."
Sheriff Perry said he did not consult a lawyer about the agreement until recently, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI inquired about the arrangement. Last year two former Blackwater employees pleaded guilty to federal firearms violations. They were sentenced to probation on the condition that they assist federal investigators.
Perry said his department was cooperating fully.
"We're not a target," Perry said. "We may be a victim in it."
joseph.neff@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4516
QUOTE
Armed free-corps (Freikorps) bans sprang up all over Germany and were secretly equipped by the Reishswehr (Regular Army). At first they mainly used to fight the Poles and the Balts on the disputed eastern frontiers, but soon they were backing plots for the overthrow of the republican regime. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 33)"
QUOTE
Many employers have for years had to call for the 'master in the house.' Now they are once again to be the 'master in the house.' " For the time being, business management was pleased. The generous contributions which so many employers had made to the National Socialist German Workers' Party were paying off. Yet for business to prosper a certain stability of society is necessary, and all through the spring and early summer law and order were crumbling in Germany as the frenzied brown-shirted gangs roamed the streets, arresting and beating up and sometimes murdering whomever they pleased while the police looked on without lifting a nightstick. The terror in the streets was not the result of the breakdown of the State's authority, as it had been in the French Revolution, but on the contrary was carried out with the encouragement and often on the orders of the State, whose authority in Germany had never been greater or more concentrated. Judges were intimidated; they were afraid for their lives if they convicted and sentenced a storm trooper even for cold-blooded murder. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 203)"
Posted by: Abell9 Monday, 23 June 2008, 9:25 pm
I would have a hard time finding anything wrong with this or an undercurrent issue except maybe with the Sheriffs office. Even then, doubtful. For one, Blackwater has in its arsenal, every make and model of automatic weapon under the sun worth owning. Even at its training facility, their arms room would rival some small countries. Their employee's carry them on more than 35 foreign lands.....17 Ak's and 5 Bushmasters....please....a drop in the bucket and hardly worth the press it got.
Posted by: Antifascist Monday, 23 June 2008, 10:12 pm
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Monday, 23 June 2008, 8:25 pm)
I would have a hard time finding anything wrong with this or an undercurrent issue except maybe with the Sheriffs office. Even then, doubtful. For one, Blackwater has in its arsenal, every make and model of automatic weapon under the sun worth owning. Even at its training facility, their arms room would rival some small countries. Their employee's carry them on more than 35 foreign lands.....17 Ak's and 5 Bushmasters....please....a drop in the bucket and hardly worth the press it got.
So why would they go through the trouble of a straw purchase if it's so insignificant and a duplicate effort? And if it's insignificant why are straw purchases illegal? The fact remains, "Blackwater has in its arsenal, every make and model of automatic weapon under the sun worth owning. "
Posted by: Abell9 Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 5:35 am
QUOTE (Antifascist @ Monday, 23 June 2008, 11:12 pm)
So why would they go through the trouble of a straw purchase if it's so insignificant and a duplicate effort? And if it's insignificant why are straw purchases illegal? The fact remains, "Blackwater has in its arsenal, every make and model of automatic weapon under the sun worth owning. "
1. I dont think it was a straw purchase.
2. We both know why straw purchases are illegal.
And yes they do. Point?
Posted by: Antifascist Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 8:33 am
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 3:35 am)
1. I dont think it was a straw purchase.
2. We both know why straw purchases are illegal.
And yes they do. Point?
2. We both know why straw purchases are illegal.
And yes they do. Point?
You made my points.
Posted by: Abell9 Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 3:28 pm
QUOTE (Antifascist @ Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 9:33 am)
You made my points.
Forgive my total lack of understanding and maybe some ignorance....but what "point" is it that I made? A small LEO buys some guns and Blackwater holds them...a number which is insignificant at its very best. Again.....point?
Posted by: sky of mind Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 4:07 pm
So, what if this single, almost insignificant purchase is simply the only one reported or discovered, and if fact, behind those closed doors a much higher percentage of that arms arsonel could be accounted for in similer fashion. That is, if anybody were ever to do an inventory/accounting.
Posted by: Abell9 Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 6:37 pm
QUOTE (sky of mind @ Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 4:07 pm)
So, what if this single, almost insignificant purchase is simply the only one reported or discovered, and if fact, behind those closed doors a much higher percentage of that arms arsonel could be accounted for in similer fashion. That is, if anybody were ever to do an inventory/accounting.
Guess it's possible, Sky. Course, it seems a bit on the white knuckled side to assume it since there is as much legal reason the Sheriffs had those weapons as illegal. But, thats just me asking questions and not assuming the worst.
Posted by: sky of mind Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 8:44 pm
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 4:37 pm)
Guess it's possible, Sky. Course, it seems a bit on the white knuckled side to assume it since there is as much legal reason the Sheriffs had those weapons as illegal. But, thats just me asking questions and not assuming the worst.
OK, since it's all about perspective, why not ask that same question backwards?
Why not assume the worst, because as you said, it's possible? Shouldn't this be investigated simply because it is as you said, possible? And if you are correct, wouldn't a complete investigation then make them clean and wholesome?
Posted by: Abell9 Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 7:47 am
QUOTE (sky of mind @ Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 8:44 pm)
OK, since it's all about perspective, why not ask that same question backwards?
Why not assume the worst, because as you said, it's possible? Shouldn't this be investigated simply because it is as you said, possible? And if you are correct, wouldn't a complete investigation then make them clean and wholesome?
Why not assume the worst, because as you said, it's possible? Shouldn't this be investigated simply because it is as you said, possible? And if you are correct, wouldn't a complete investigation then make them clean and wholesome?
Maybe, maybe not. Just seems alot to do about nothing at all. There is a tendency for some to walk around and point at all the broken things (real or imagined) and scream "wrong, injustice, govenrment needs to fix it," ect...I just dont see it as a big deal.
Posted by: sky of mind Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 8:16 am
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 5:47 am)
Maybe, maybe not. Just seems alot to do about nothing at all. There is a tendency for some to walk around and point at all the broken things (real or imagined) and scream "wrong, injustice, govenrment needs to fix it," ect...I just dont see it as a big deal.
There's no need to point at things known to be not broken. And as I said, if there is no issue, they can stand with some extra spot lights for a while. One might think that for a company in their business, doing what they do, that for most of blackwaters existance they have enjoyed an extraordinary amount of secracy.
Really, if they have nothing to hide, why do they hide everything?
Posted by: Antifascist Thursday, 26 June 2008, 10:37 pm
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Wednesday, 25 June 2008, 5:47 am)
Maybe, maybe not. Just seems alot to do about nothing at all. There is a tendency for some to walk around and point at all the broken things (real or imagined) and scream "wrong, injustice, govenrment needs to fix it," ect...I just dont see it as a big deal.
Well, I'll be darn. It looks like one at least one law professor and the ATF thinks it's a big deal. The one amazing thing about Republican Conservatives is that they aren't just wrong--they are ALWAYS wrong: wrong in economics, wrong in National security, wrong about global warming, wrong in war.
QUOTE
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Feds_raid_Blackwaters_armory_in_firearms_0626.html
Associated Press
Published: Thursday June 26, 2008
Federal agents have raided an armory owned by security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.
The North Carolina-based company said the raid was part of an investigation into a deal that allowed a local sheriff's office to store high-powered assault rifles at the company's armory at its headquarters in Moyock.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell says that investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Blackwater's armory Tuesday.
She said she did not know whether the weapons in question were seized.
Tyrrell said ATF has known about the arrangement for a long time and that the company believes it is lawful and proper.
Both ATF and U.S. Attorney George Holding declined to comment.
Associated Press
Published: Thursday June 26, 2008
Federal agents have raided an armory owned by security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.
The North Carolina-based company said the raid was part of an investigation into a deal that allowed a local sheriff's office to store high-powered assault rifles at the company's armory at its headquarters in Moyock.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell says that investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched Blackwater's armory Tuesday.
She said she did not know whether the weapons in question were seized.
Tyrrell said ATF has known about the arrangement for a long time and that the company believes it is lawful and proper.
Both ATF and U.S. Attorney George Holding declined to comment.
Posted by: Abell9 Friday, 27 June 2008, 10:34 am
QUOTE (Antifascist @ Thursday, 26 June 2008, 10:37 pm)
Well, I'll be darn. It looks like one at least one law professor and the ATF thinks it's a big deal. The one amazing thing about Republican Conservatives is that they aren't just wrong--they are ALWAYS wrong: wrong in economics, wrong in National security, wrong about global warming, wrong in war.
I didnt take that article you posted as "guilt has already been established" since nobody bothered to comment.
QUOTE
Both ATF and U.S. Attorney George Holding declined to comment.
But, being always wrong, I can see that I would naturally be in error as your superior intellect would see things I couldnt possibly discern. Thank you for pointing out my weaknesses and Ill do my best to be like you now.
Posted by: Antifascist Friday, 27 June 2008, 10:40 am
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Friday, 27 June 2008, 8:34 am)
I didnt take that article you posted as "guilt has already been established" since nobody bothered to comment.
But, being always wrong, I can see that I would naturally be in error as your superior intellect would see things I couldnt possibly discern. Thank you for pointing out my weaknesses and Ill do my best to be like you now.
But, being always wrong, I can see that I would naturally be in error as your superior intellect would see things I couldnt possibly discern. Thank you for pointing out my weaknesses and Ill do my best to be like you now.
You're making by points again.
Posted by: sky of mind Friday, 27 June 2008, 11:04 am
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Friday, 27 June 2008, 8:34 am)
I didnt take that article you posted as "guilt has already been established" since nobody bothered to comment.
But, being always wrong, I can see that I would naturally be in error as your superior intellect would see things I couldnt possibly discern. Thank you for pointing out my weaknesses and Ill do my best to be like you now.
But, being always wrong, I can see that I would naturally be in error as your superior intellect would see things I couldnt possibly discern. Thank you for pointing out my weaknesses and Ill do my best to be like you now.
The quality or amount of itellect has zero to do with correctness.
Even very intelligent people wind up in prison.
Edit to add....
Please take a note Karen. That's what defensive posturing looks like in text format
Posted by: Abell9 Saturday, 28 June 2008, 8:05 am
QUOTE (sky of mind @ Friday, 27 June 2008, 12:04 pm)
The quality or amount of itellect has zero to do with correctness.
Even very intelligent people wind up in prison.
Edit to add....
Please take a note Karen. That's what defensive posturing looks like in text format
Even very intelligent people wind up in prison.
Edit to add....
Please take a note Karen. That's what defensive posturing looks like in text format
You crack me up. Both of you. You would take a news article that plainly says nothing of any relevance and consider it absolute fact and pass judgement. A broad and sweeping comment that Conservative Republicans are ALWAYS wrong is like saying Liberals are always wrong. It isnt so but lets not worry about facts....lets stick to emotion and opinion.
I question the validity of an article that clearly states that there is nothing concrete to conclude from anything yet and Im making YOUR point? Again....WHAT point?
Posted by: Antifascist Saturday, 28 June 2008, 10:22 am
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Saturday, 28 June 2008, 6:05 am)
You crack me up. Both of you. You would take a news article that plainly says nothing of any relevance and consider it absolute fact and pass judgement. A broad and sweeping comment that Conservative Republicans are ALWAYS wrong is like saying Liberals are always wrong. It isn't so but let's not worry about facts....lets stick to emotion and opinion.
I question the validity of an article that clearly states that there is nothing concrete to conclude from anything yet and Im making YOUR point? Again....WHAT point?
I question the validity of an article that clearly states that there is nothing concrete to conclude from anything yet and Im making YOUR point? Again....WHAT point?
Well, this is an old troll maneuver--your strawman argument is that we passed judgment of their guilt as "absolute fact." We originally reported that a law professor saw elements of a straw purchase. In fact, an investigation was already underway! We know for a fact that this kind of arrangement is illegal! And we know for a fact that some Blackwater employees were already "sentenced to probation" for other federal firearms violations. ATF was already investigating this specific case!
These are relevant facts and conclusions. You would be a very poor detective or investigator. This is a preliminary investigation that is still before a preliminary hearing that determines if prosecution is possible. An investigation is not a court verdict, but an investigation is the necessary condition for a court verdict. The article itself, and by association our position, is full of the very cautions that you accuse us of ignoring. Yet, it does have concrete conclusions. What points of validity are you challenging?
If you are trying to argue that Blackwater hasn't been found guilty by a court for this specific purchase, then you are bravely and safely proclaiming the inconsequently obvious. Unfortunately, you are only arguing with yourself, but be careful--you could lose.
QUOTE
"Under federal law, it is illegal for a person to receive or possess an automatic weapon that is not registered to that person in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
The agreement between Blackwater and the Sheriff's Office could be [my emphasis] an illegal straw purchase, said Richard Myers, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A straw purchase, Myers said, is when one person fills out the federal firearms registration form to obtain a weapon for another person's use.
"I prosecuted several when I was with the U.S. attorney," Myers said. "If I were Blackwater's attorney, I would be concerned [my emphasis] about whether this is a genuine purchase or a straw purchase.
Sheriff Perry said he did not consult a lawyer about the agreement until recently, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI inquired about the arrangement. Last year two former Blackwater employees pleaded guilty to federal firearms violations. They were sentenced to probation on the condition that they assist federal investigators."
The agreement between Blackwater and the Sheriff's Office could be [my emphasis] an illegal straw purchase, said Richard Myers, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A straw purchase, Myers said, is when one person fills out the federal firearms registration form to obtain a weapon for another person's use.
"I prosecuted several when I was with the U.S. attorney," Myers said. "If I were Blackwater's attorney, I would be concerned [my emphasis] about whether this is a genuine purchase or a straw purchase.
Sheriff Perry said he did not consult a lawyer about the agreement until recently, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI inquired about the arrangement. Last year two former Blackwater employees pleaded guilty to federal firearms violations. They were sentenced to probation on the condition that they assist federal investigators."
I would be more concerned with your assumption that this weapons issue is insignificant. You are making an assumption that this weapons cache isn't a threat to your safety because Blackwater is involved. This shows an extreme ideological bias. Even if you shared all the political ideology of the Blackwater founders, it still doesn't mean you are immune to being a by standing victim. The relationship between German civil law enforcement and the German paramilitary organizations had a bad end with executions held in some the victims' own front yards. In one case they executed the wrong man that happened to have the same name as the person they were trying to kill. History can repeat itself.
QUOTE
One other murder deserves mention. At seven-twenty on the evening of June 30, Dr. Willi Schmid, the eminent music critic of the Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten, a leading Munich daily newspaper, was playing the cello in his study while his wife prepared supper and their three children, aged nine, eight and two, played in the living room of their apartment in the Schackstrasse in Munich. The doorbell rang, four S.S. men appeared and without explanation took Dr. Schmid away. Four days later his body was returned in a coffin with orders from the Gestapo not to open it in any circumstances. Dr. Willi Schmid, who had never participated in politics, had been mistaken by the S.S. thugs for Willi Schmidt, a local S.A. leader....
(Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 223)"
(Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 223)"
You said, "A broad and sweeping comment that Conservative Republicans are ALWAYS wrong is like saying Liberals are always wrong." No, it isn't like that at all because Liberals have a different ideology and are sometimes wrong, but Republican Conservatives are always wrong in the fields I listed. The reason for this is that Republican political ideology is unsound thus the policies they promote propagate the same errors. Making the wrong assumptions results in the wrong reasoned conclusion--this excludes conclusions based on guessing and mere accident.
You wrote "WHAT point?"
You're a conservative--figure it out.
Posted by: Abell9 Saturday, 28 June 2008, 8:47 pm
QUOTE
You said, "A broad and sweeping comment that Conservative Republicans are ALWAYS wrong is like saying Liberals are always wrong." No, it isn't like that at all because Liberals have a different ideology and are sometimes wrong, but Republican Conservatives are always wrong in the fields I listed. The reason for this is that Republican political ideology is unsound thus the policies they promote propagate the same errors. Making the wrong assumptions results in the wrong reasoned conclusion--this excludes conclusions based on guessing and mere accident.
You may be qualified to make the assertion that Conservatives are always wrong in the fields listed...or not. Dont know you but....are you not basing that statement on opinion?
QUOTE
Well, this is an old troll maneuver
Thats original. You ever see me reject anything when people put up reasonable discussion or debate? I may not agree, but I do pay attention, offer perspective, and even accept some thinking, coupled with facts. I dont play troll games but I do ask questions and ask for facts. Or....am I not supposed to do that?
The way I see it is people here can throw stuff up and it could say..."ALL CONSERVATIVES ARE NATZIS. People would gladly agree because many hate conservative thinking as well as the conservatives themselves. Is it correct? Nope. Is it factual? Nope. I just dont buy into every cut and paste job I see and I dont care what paper it comes out of. I dont assume guilt. I dont assume all liberals are idiots. Quite the opposite actually. I actually do question things from both sides. If that doesnt bang your shutters...well....fire me.
Posted by: sky of mind Saturday, 28 June 2008, 9:02 pm
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Saturday, 28 June 2008, 6:47 pm)
You may be qualified to make the assertion that Conservatives are always wrong in the fields listed...or not. Dont know you but....are you not basing that statement on opinion?
Opinion based on much personal observation and critical thinking with questions and answers.
Do not make the mistake of writing the guy off simply becuse you don't agree, or if in fact you fit the demographic.
because the FACT is, he just might be correct. And like the rest of us, you have been wrong before. (ever vote for GWB?)
Personally, I don't have much agreement with anything conservative. I do though have to admit that some very nice and likable people have opinions I absolutely disagree with. The only time I can't tollerate a conservative individual, is when he gets in my face with it. Which, based on personal observation, happens quite a bit more on an individual basis than vice versa.
In other words, I, and my fellow Liberals tend to be more tollerant of YOUR view point. WE don't generally refer to you as anti-american, anti-patriot, terrorist, commie scum. We just call you stupid, narrow minded, loud, ignorant hillbilly, who after nearly 150 years, still can't accept that the south lost the civil war!
Posted by: Antifascist Saturday, 28 June 2008, 9:58 pm
QUOTE (Abell9 @ Saturday, 28 June 2008, 6:47 pm)
You may be qualified to make the assertion that Conservatives are always wrong in the fields listed...or not. Dont know you but....are you not basing that statement on opinion?
Thats original. You ever see me reject anything when people put up reasonable discussion or debate? I may not agree, but I do pay attention, offer perspective, and even accept some thinking, coupled with facts. I dont play troll games but I do ask questions and ask for facts. Or....am I not supposed to do that?
The way I see it is people here can throw stuff up and it could say..."ALL CONSERVATIVES ARE NATZIS. People would gladly agree because many hate conservative thinking as well as the conservatives themselves. Is it correct? Nope. Is it factual? Nope. I just dont buy into every cut and paste job I see and I dont care what paper it comes out of. I dont assume guilt. I dont assume all liberals are idiots. Quite the opposite actually. I actually do question things from both sides. If that doesnt bang your shutters...well....fire me.
Thats original. You ever see me reject anything when people put up reasonable discussion or debate? I may not agree, but I do pay attention, offer perspective, and even accept some thinking, coupled with facts. I dont play troll games but I do ask questions and ask for facts. Or....am I not supposed to do that?
The way I see it is people here can throw stuff up and it could say..."ALL CONSERVATIVES ARE NATZIS. People would gladly agree because many hate conservative thinking as well as the conservatives themselves. Is it correct? Nope. Is it factual? Nope. I just dont buy into every cut and paste job I see and I dont care what paper it comes out of. I dont assume guilt. I dont assume all liberals are idiots. Quite the opposite actually. I actually do question things from both sides. If that doesnt bang your shutters...well....fire me.
In spite of our heated argument I do see a little glimmer of light of agreement, but it could be an illusion on my part. For example, your comment "...are you not basing that statement on opinion?" I interpret as either a genuine effort to make a distinction between, statements, facts, opinion, and knowledge, or a debating tactic to introduce philosophical epistemological skepticism and proclaim that the we cannot know anything therefore making my statements mere opinion. We all know everyone has opinions. I can take the discussion in either direction. But let me warn you that taking the position that knowledge is not possible is a losing "proposition."
So I shall take you comment as sincere, "I may not agree, but I do pay attention, offer perspective, and even accept some thinking, coupled with facts. I dont play troll games but I do ask questions and ask for facts. Or....am I not supposed to do that?"
I would categorize my comments as "knowledge" and not mere opinion because they meet three criteria of knowledge:
1. X is true. X representing any fact or statement of fact which is actually the case. But because X is true doesn't mean I "know" it. So a cut and paste job could be either true of false.
2. I believe that X is true. Mere belief is not sufficient to have knowledge but it a necessary condition for the possibility of knowing. I may state that the Martian sky is red and it may be true, but I must believe it to be red for it to be knowledge.
3. I must have a reason (inductive or deductive) or evidence (not necessarily defined by one scientific school of "proof" or evidence) for believing that X is true. I can't guess the the Martian sky is red. It may be true that the Martian sky is red, meeting the first criterion of knowledge, but guessing that it is red is a bet and not knowledge.
I wouldn't call all Republican conservatives Nazis. Nazism is very specific historical political ideology and there are only a few Nazis in the Republican party. I would instead call many Republican conservatives "fascists" and I have posted a massive body of work defining "fascism." (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php?showtopic=18946)
The vast majority of Republicans and many Democrats are what I would categorize as "Proto-Fascists" or "pseudo-fascists"(http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php?showtopic=18588&st=0&gopid=121684&#entry121684). I use the terms 'Republican' and 'Democrats' only because this is a political forum. However, the truth is America is a Fascist Torture State and a fascist State is also a fascist society.
You're not fired.
Posted by: Abell9 Sunday, 29 June 2008, 2:14 am
QUOTE (sky of mind @ Saturday, 28 June 2008, 10:02 pm)
Opinion based on much personal observation and critical thinking with questions and answers.
Do not make the mistake of writing the guy off simply becuse you don't agree, or if in fact you fit the demographic.
because the FACT is, he just might be correct. And like the rest of us, you have been wrong before. (ever vote for GWB?)
I stand in amazement as you listen to yourself talk. I dont think I have written anyone off. It would appear that my questions as to truth and fact are in FACT...curiousity and interest to find truth. Truth I am learning by definition, is not the same thing as fact. Nor do I profess correctness in every topic I broach. I do have an insite some broader by personal experience than many and in some situations, know with absolute certainty of which I speak. Still then, much of what I have seen is still slanted with perspective so it becomes a matter of not what I saw but how I perceieved it. Asking questions about perspective is a way of determining truth and fact in a comparitive.
Personally, I don't have much agreement with anything conservative. I do though have to admit that some very nice and likable people have opinions I absolutely disagree with. The only time I can't tollerate a conservative individual, is when he gets in my face with it. Which, based on personal observation, happens quite a bit more on an individual basis than vice versa.
In other words, I, and my fellow Liberals tend to be more tollerant of YOUR view point. WE don't generally refer to you as anti-american, anti-patriot, terrorist, commie scum. We just call you stupid, narrow minded, loud, ignorant hillbilly, who after nearly 150 years, still can't accept that the south lost the civil war!
Doubt you ever saw the tags you stated below ever coming out of my thought process. You say "your" and "you" like I am that which you say because I happen to have a conservative value base. And while I do believe in things you cannot by FACT, refute....it does not by sheer belief on your part nulify that which I do believe. Anti-american, anti-patriot, terrorist, commie scum? How many times have I said that questioning the way you are led IS patriotic and American regardless of what I think. And to many, the civil war was about slavery. To those who really uderstand it, it was as much to do with states rights. And while your catagorization of Conservatives is pretty off base, so is your impression of my thought process.
Do not make the mistake of writing the guy off simply becuse you don't agree, or if in fact you fit the demographic.
because the FACT is, he just might be correct. And like the rest of us, you have been wrong before. (ever vote for GWB?)
I stand in amazement as you listen to yourself talk. I dont think I have written anyone off. It would appear that my questions as to truth and fact are in FACT...curiousity and interest to find truth. Truth I am learning by definition, is not the same thing as fact. Nor do I profess correctness in every topic I broach. I do have an insite some broader by personal experience than many and in some situations, know with absolute certainty of which I speak. Still then, much of what I have seen is still slanted with perspective so it becomes a matter of not what I saw but how I perceieved it. Asking questions about perspective is a way of determining truth and fact in a comparitive.
Personally, I don't have much agreement with anything conservative. I do though have to admit that some very nice and likable people have opinions I absolutely disagree with. The only time I can't tollerate a conservative individual, is when he gets in my face with it. Which, based on personal observation, happens quite a bit more on an individual basis than vice versa.
In other words, I, and my fellow Liberals tend to be more tollerant of YOUR view point. WE don't generally refer to you as anti-american, anti-patriot, terrorist, commie scum. We just call you stupid, narrow minded, loud, ignorant hillbilly, who after nearly 150 years, still can't accept that the south lost the civil war!
Doubt you ever saw the tags you stated below ever coming out of my thought process. You say "your" and "you" like I am that which you say because I happen to have a conservative value base. And while I do believe in things you cannot by FACT, refute....it does not by sheer belief on your part nulify that which I do believe. Anti-american, anti-patriot, terrorist, commie scum? How many times have I said that questioning the way you are led IS patriotic and American regardless of what I think. And to many, the civil war was about slavery. To those who really uderstand it, it was as much to do with states rights. And while your catagorization of Conservatives is pretty off base, so is your impression of my thought process.
Posted by: Abell9 Sunday, 29 June 2008, 2:44 am
QUOTE (Antifascist @ Saturday, 28 June 2008, 10:58 pm)
In spite of our heated argument I do see a little glimmer of light of agreement, but it could be an illusion on my part. For example, your comment "...are you not basing that statement on opinion?" I interpret as either a genuine effort to make a distinction between, statements, facts, opinion, and knowledge, or a debating tactic to introduce philosophical epistemological skepticism and proclaim that the we cannot know anything therefore making my statements mere opinion. We all know everyone has opinions. I can take the discussion in either direction. But let me warn you that taking the position that knowledge is not possible is a losing "proposition."
Valid comment the last one about knowledge since the establishment of fact is as often based on perspective as it is truth. Truth and fact seem at odds. I asked if your basis of thought was built on what you personally believe or what is generally accepted as fact. We will leave the truth out for the moment. There will always exist the lawyers element of doubt when taking issue with anything.
Did I see John shoot Mary?
Yes?
Did you actually SEE the bullet leave his gun and enter Mary's body?
No, I did not.
So therefore it may have been a bullet from another gun????
I get your point and it is true. One can question it to infinity when at some point, a reasonable conclusion can be reached. But, in this case...Im not at the conclusion point. Maybe because of perspective. Maybe because I have actually been in that particular arms room and perceived it to be within the law. But perception is not always reality...is it.
So I shall take you comment as sincere, "I may not agree, but I do pay attention, offer perspective, and even accept some thinking, coupled with facts. I dont play troll games but I do ask questions and ask for facts. Or....am I not supposed to do that?"
I would categorize my comments as "knowledge" and not mere opinion because they meet three criteria of knowledge:
1. X is true. X representing any fact or statement of fact which is actually the case. But because X is true doesn't mean I "know" it. So a cut and paste job could be either true of false.
2. I believe that X is true. Mere belief is not sufficient to have knowledge but it a necessary condition for the possibility of knowing. I may state that the Martian sky is red and it may be true, but I must believe it to be red for it to be knowledge.
3. I must have a reason (inductive or deductive) or evidence (not necessarily defined by one scientific school of "proof" or evidence) for believing that X is true. I can't guess the the Martian sky is red. It may be true that the Martian sky is red, meeting the first criterion of knowledge, but guessing that it is red is a bet and not knowledge.
I wouldn't call all Republican conservatives Nazis. Nazism is very specific historical political ideology and there are only a few Nazis in the Republican party. I would instead call many Republican conservatives "fascists" and I have posted a massive body of work defining "fascism." (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php?showtopic=18946)
The vast majority of Republicans and many Democrats are what I would categorize as "Proto-Fascists" or "pseudo-fascists"(http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php?showtopic=18588&st=0&gopid=121684&#entry121684). I use the terms 'Republican' and 'Democrats' only because this is a political forum. However, the truth is America is a Fascist Torture State and a fascist State is also a fascist society.
It was an analogy to draw out a thought process but I get your point. A point I dont agree with, but a good point none the less. I tend to take things down to individual levels. While America may have elements of fascism, I am unconvinced that it is a society rather than an element of leadership at the time it exists. Episodic if you will. Allowing that I have been a soldier under many Presidents, you see an ebb and flow of what you speak, but never a sheer dominace one way or the other. It may lean in that direction right now, but I dont see an overwhelming agreement with it so therefore have a difficult time casting all of society into the same bucket. And as long as we have a reasonable amount of the population in disagreement with the leadership, in this case....more than reasonable...I dont see society as a whole in that bucket.
No, we don't agree in absolutes. Quite possibly my experiences and perpectives may not be or may more defined than your own from "eyes on" perspective. Still, in the end, each of us will lean in the direction that we believe. In this, we lean in different directions.
You're not fired.
Valid comment the last one about knowledge since the establishment of fact is as often based on perspective as it is truth. Truth and fact seem at odds. I asked if your basis of thought was built on what you personally believe or what is generally accepted as fact. We will leave the truth out for the moment. There will always exist the lawyers element of doubt when taking issue with anything.
Did I see John shoot Mary?
Yes?
Did you actually SEE the bullet leave his gun and enter Mary's body?
No, I did not.
So therefore it may have been a bullet from another gun????
I get your point and it is true. One can question it to infinity when at some point, a reasonable conclusion can be reached. But, in this case...Im not at the conclusion point. Maybe because of perspective. Maybe because I have actually been in that particular arms room and perceived it to be within the law. But perception is not always reality...is it.
So I shall take you comment as sincere, "I may not agree, but I do pay attention, offer perspective, and even accept some thinking, coupled with facts. I dont play troll games but I do ask questions and ask for facts. Or....am I not supposed to do that?"
I would categorize my comments as "knowledge" and not mere opinion because they meet three criteria of knowledge:
1. X is true. X representing any fact or statement of fact which is actually the case. But because X is true doesn't mean I "know" it. So a cut and paste job could be either true of false.
2. I believe that X is true. Mere belief is not sufficient to have knowledge but it a necessary condition for the possibility of knowing. I may state that the Martian sky is red and it may be true, but I must believe it to be red for it to be knowledge.
3. I must have a reason (inductive or deductive) or evidence (not necessarily defined by one scientific school of "proof" or evidence) for believing that X is true. I can't guess the the Martian sky is red. It may be true that the Martian sky is red, meeting the first criterion of knowledge, but guessing that it is red is a bet and not knowledge.
I wouldn't call all Republican conservatives Nazis. Nazism is very specific historical political ideology and there are only a few Nazis in the Republican party. I would instead call many Republican conservatives "fascists" and I have posted a massive body of work defining "fascism." (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php?showtopic=18946)
The vast majority of Republicans and many Democrats are what I would categorize as "Proto-Fascists" or "pseudo-fascists"(http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/index.php?showtopic=18588&st=0&gopid=121684&#entry121684). I use the terms 'Republican' and 'Democrats' only because this is a political forum. However, the truth is America is a Fascist Torture State and a fascist State is also a fascist society.
It was an analogy to draw out a thought process but I get your point. A point I dont agree with, but a good point none the less. I tend to take things down to individual levels. While America may have elements of fascism, I am unconvinced that it is a society rather than an element of leadership at the time it exists. Episodic if you will. Allowing that I have been a soldier under many Presidents, you see an ebb and flow of what you speak, but never a sheer dominace one way or the other. It may lean in that direction right now, but I dont see an overwhelming agreement with it so therefore have a difficult time casting all of society into the same bucket. And as long as we have a reasonable amount of the population in disagreement with the leadership, in this case....more than reasonable...I dont see society as a whole in that bucket.
No, we don't agree in absolutes. Quite possibly my experiences and perpectives may not be or may more defined than your own from "eyes on" perspective. Still, in the end, each of us will lean in the direction that we believe. In this, we lean in different directions.
You're not fired.
Posted by: sky of mind Sunday, 29 June 2008, 9:44 am
Because mr Abell, in these environs your statement.....
QUOTE
Certified Infidel.
Spy in Training
Deceptive Right Wing Shame to his Mother
Considered a "TROLL" by leading experts on this board.
Vile, Evil, money grubbing criminal with a gun
Spy in Training
Deceptive Right Wing Shame to his Mother
Considered a "TROLL" by leading experts on this board.
Vile, Evil, money grubbing criminal with a gun
Has a ring of truth to it. Which, from your perspective, is quite deliberate.
Though intended to be tongue in cheek, it's also largly true, you and I both know it.
You are and will remain my ideological opposite. That doesn't mean i don't respect you. In fact, because i do, I will call your bull crap for what it is, when ever you attempt to carpet a path way with it, which lately has been pretty much constant. Nearly everything you have posted has been of a contradictory nature. That also, I don't believe to be anything less than deliberate. You're having fun with us. Just as you did before you came to this forum, and it continues today. I personally don't mind at all. You keep us on our toes because you have the ability and experience to not be a typical "talking points" troll.
Keep in mind Mr Abell, that I like you personally. However, around here and beyond that you truly are the infidel.
So, the conversation has once again become something a bit personal in nature. I quess that can't be avoided. I would ask though (again) for you to consider that which you don't agree with, giving extra weight to the fact that politically speaking, over the course of this decade, you have been mistaken, and even wrong before. You have stated that you came here to learn. I do hope that's still true.
Edit to add.....
I'm absolutely not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that this time, concerning Iraqi oil, that you're wrong!
Posted by: Abell9 Sunday, 29 June 2008, 5:58 pm
QUOTE (sky of mind @ Sunday, 29 June 2008, 10:44 am)
Because mr Abell, in these environs your statement.....
Has a ring of truth to it. Which, from your perspective, is quite deliberate.
Though intended to be tongue in cheek, it's also largly true, you and I both know it.
You are and will remain my ideological opposite. That doesn't mean i don't respect you. In fact, because i do, I will call your bull crap for what it is, when ever you attempt to carpet a path way with it, which lately has been pretty much constant. Nearly everything you have posted has been of a contradictory nature. That also, I don't believe to be anything less than deliberate. You're having fun with us. Just as you did before you came to this forum, and it continues today. I personally don't mind at all. You keep us on our toes because you have the ability and experience to not be a typical "talking points" troll.
Keep in mind Mr Abell, that I like you personally. However, around here and beyond that you truly are the infidel.
So, the conversation has once again become something a bit personal in nature. I quess that can't be avoided. I would ask though (again) for you to consider that which you don't agree with, giving extra weight to the fact that politically speaking, over the course of this decade, you have been mistaken, and even wrong before. You have stated that you came here to learn. I do hope that's still true.
Edit to add.....
I'm absolutely not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that this time, concerning Iraqi oil, that you're wrong!
Has a ring of truth to it. Which, from your perspective, is quite deliberate.
Though intended to be tongue in cheek, it's also largly true, you and I both know it.
You are and will remain my ideological opposite. That doesn't mean i don't respect you. In fact, because i do, I will call your bull crap for what it is, when ever you attempt to carpet a path way with it, which lately has been pretty much constant. Nearly everything you have posted has been of a contradictory nature. That also, I don't believe to be anything less than deliberate. You're having fun with us. Just as you did before you came to this forum, and it continues today. I personally don't mind at all. You keep us on our toes because you have the ability and experience to not be a typical "talking points" troll.
Keep in mind Mr Abell, that I like you personally. However, around here and beyond that you truly are the infidel.
So, the conversation has once again become something a bit personal in nature. I quess that can't be avoided. I would ask though (again) for you to consider that which you don't agree with, giving extra weight to the fact that politically speaking, over the course of this decade, you have been mistaken, and even wrong before. You have stated that you came here to learn. I do hope that's still true.
Edit to add.....
I'm absolutely not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that this time, concerning Iraqi oil, that you're wrong!
Sky...your right.
Posted by: sky of mind Sunday, 29 June 2008, 6:37 pm
QUOTE (sky of mind @ Sunday, 29 June 2008, 7:44 am)
I'm absolutely not saying you're stupid. I'm saying that this time, concerning Iraqi oil, that you're wrong!
Only about this part.
The rest is a personal statement, for which there is no right or wrong.
Posted by: Antifascist Sunday, 8 March 2009, 2:26 pm
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
Friday, March 06, 2009
-- by Dave
One of the more disturbing trends we've been observing is the return of far-right "Patriot" rhetoric about government oppression with the election of President Obama. Fueled in no small part by mainstream right-wing talkers proclaiming we're headed into "socialism" -- not to mention a "radical communist" who must be "stopped" or else America will "cease to exist" -- the overheated rhetoric has been gradually getting higher in volume, intensity, and frequency with each passing week.
The initial concern that this raises is the possibility of a new wave of citizen militias, particularly when you have mainstream pundits likehttp://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-beck-plots-out-our-dystopian-f out there helping to promote the concept. As Glenn Greenwald observed, the "Patriots" are back with a vengeance.
At least for the time being, however, there isn't any evidence of new militias forming, though we may see numbers growing within the coming months within existing units, particularly as Fox News and radio pundits start fueling right-wing anxieties.
However, we are starting to see a trend that's even more disturbing: Military veterans voicing Patriot-movement beliefs, including threats of violent resistance to the Obama administration.
http://www.enctoday.com/common/printer/view.php?db=jdn&id=62658:
A federal grand jury indicted a former Camp Lejeune Marine on Wednesday on charges that he threatened the life of Barack Obama, the U.S. Attorney's Office confirmed today.
Kody Brittingham, 20, formerly a lance corporal with 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, was accused of making threats against Obama while he was president-elect, said Robin Zier, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office for the eastern district of North Carolina.
Brittingham was arrested by the Jacksonville Police Department on breaking and entering charges in mid-December 2008.
Naval investigators discovered a journal allegedly written by Brittingham in his barracks after his arrest by civilian authorities in December. The journal contained plans on how to kill the president, as well as white supremacist material, a federal law enforcement official said.
This is an example of why I've called the Iraq War http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/05/mcveigh-finishing-school.html: Inevitably, there are going to be competent killers either joining the far right from our military ranks -- especially if they've been recruited into those beliefs either before or during their service -- or enacting far-right "lone wolf scenarios," and they are going to have the ability to wreak a great deal of havoc.
Another vivid example is the above video, in which an anonymous "Marine" not only urges that citizen militias form to resist any new gun laws and possibly taxation, but also promises them that "there is a resistance" within the military as well.
Note also that the video opens with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Of course, this was the inscription on the T-shirt worn by Timothy McVeigh (picturehttp://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/t-shirt.jpg) at the time of his arrest for the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Remember, too, that there have already been concerns raised about the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the ranks of the military. If Patriot-movement beliefs -- which are only a few degrees removed from neo-Nazi beliefs anyway -- have become somewhat common in the ranks of the military, then the concerns raised then by the FBI hold true in this situation as well:
Military experience—ranging from failure at basic training to success in special operations forces—is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement. FBI reporting indicates extremist leaders have historically favored recruiting active and former military personnel for their knowledge of firearms, explosives, and tactical skills and their access to weapons and intelligence in preparation for an anticipated war against the federal government, Jews, and people of color.
... The prestige which the extremist movement bestows upon members with military experience grants them the potential for influence beyond their numbers. Most extremist groups have some members with military experience, and those with military experience often hold positions of authority within the groups to which they belong.
... Military experience—often regardless of its length or type—distinguishes one within the extremist movement. While those with military backgrounds constitute a small percentage of white supremacist extremists, FBI investigations indicate they frequently have higher profiles within the movement, including recruitment and leadership roles.
Reading the http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=bggXQxhyo4s&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3DbggXQxhyo4s%26eurl%3Dhttp%3A//www.ignatius-piazza-front-sight.com/2009/03/02/patriot-or-traitor/ to the above Marine's video, you can see that he's not an isolated case:
This Marine is right on. Those now in power in Washington are hell-bent on destroying America and The Constitution. The Marine is right, America is a Republic, NOT a democracy, and what he says about laws that infringe on the 2nd Amendment is right. Any law that 'infringes' on the right to keep and bear arms is unconstitutional. This Marine is a patriot. Those that disagree with him, you know where the border is.
You only wish that's what he was. Everything he said int hat video is true. And if you weren't so blind to what is going on right now, ie. the government wanting to nationalize the banking systems, wanting to increase gun laws...not that there aren't over 20k already on the books, I could continue. The American people aren't free anymore, they just have a false sense of freedom, given to them to keep them complacent and happy as they go about their daily lives...but soon that will end.
I believe there is a mountain of truth to this video. Everyone I know is stocking up on guns/ammo/food. I was in the military and I think most servicemembers feel the same as him. They took the oath to protect and defend the constituion against all enemies foreign and domestic. Most military members are very patriotic and attuned to what is going on. When I was in, most everyone hated Clinton. I can only imagine what they feel toward Obama and the Congress.
The context in which this is bubbling up is perhaps the most troubling. We're seeing an increase in http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/sludge-hate-washes-higher-our-shores nationally. Much of the animus is directed at President Obama (see, for instance the http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BF547975-18FE-70B2-A85A7CB6F7889EED -- led by Alan Keyes and his compatriots), and much of it is more generically directed at liberals and immigrants.
In any event, it isn't long after right-wingers name their "enemies" that we start seeing violence directed their way. And the most dangerous potential for this lies with the young men we've just spent years training how to kill.
Posted by: Antifascist Thursday, 12 March 2009, 11:36 am
Now who could of been the targets of the Executive Assassination Ring?
-Paul Wellstone who died in a plane crash?
-Kenneth Lay, former Chairman and CEO of Eron who died of a heart attack before going to prison?
-Anthrax letters sent two Democratic Senators, Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
-Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist who worked at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. Ivins had been told about the impending prosecution and died from an overdose of "Tylenol with Codeine," which was reported as a suicide on August 1, 2008.
-Mike Connell who was Karl Rove's email administrator killed in plane crash.
Danny Casolaro...
He was working on a book that tied together the scandals surrounding the presidency of George H. W. Bush. He told his friends he was going to "bring back" the head of the Octopus. Instead, his body was found in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991, an apparent suicide.
QUOTE
http://www.alternet.org/rights/131153/seymour_hersh:_%22executive_assassination_ring%22_answered_to_cheney,_had_no_congressional_oversight/
By Eric Black, MinnPost.com. Posted March 12, 2009.
Investigative journalist Sy Hersh dropped a bombshell revelation on Monday about international killings ordered under Bush.
At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota [Monday] legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”
Hersh spoke with great confidence about these findings from his current reporting, which he hasn’t written about yet.
In an email exchange afterward, Hersh said that his statements were “an honest response to a question” from the event’s moderator, U of M Political Scientist Larry Jacobs and “not something I wanted to dwell about in public.”
Hersh didn’t take back the statements, which he said arise from reporting he is doing for a book, but that it might be a year or two before he has what he needs on the topic to be “effective ... that is, empirical, for even the most skeptical.”
The evening of great conversation, featuring Walter Mondale and Hersh, moderated by Jacobs and titled “America’s Constitutional Crisis,” looked to be a mostly historical review of events that have tested our Constitution, by a journalist and a high government officials who had experience with many of the crises.
And it was mostly historical, and a great conversation, in which Hersh and Mondale talked about the patterns by which presidents seem to get intoxicated by executive power, frustrated by the limitations on that power from Congress and the public, drawn into improper covert actions that exceed their constitutional powers, in the belief that they can get results and will never be found out. Despite a few references to the Founding Fathers, the history was mostly recent, starting with the Vietnam War with much of it arising from the George W. Bush administration, which both men roundly denounced.
At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”
Replied Hersh:
“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.
"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...
"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.
"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.
"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.
"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.
"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee.?’
"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”
Hersh, the best-known investigative reporter of his generation, writes about these kinds of issues for The New Yorker. He has written often about JSOC, including, last July that:
“Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A. operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the field without congressional interference.”
By Eric Black, MinnPost.com. Posted March 12, 2009.
Investigative journalist Sy Hersh dropped a bombshell revelation on Monday about international killings ordered under Bush.
At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota [Monday] legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”
Hersh spoke with great confidence about these findings from his current reporting, which he hasn’t written about yet.
In an email exchange afterward, Hersh said that his statements were “an honest response to a question” from the event’s moderator, U of M Political Scientist Larry Jacobs and “not something I wanted to dwell about in public.”
Hersh didn’t take back the statements, which he said arise from reporting he is doing for a book, but that it might be a year or two before he has what he needs on the topic to be “effective ... that is, empirical, for even the most skeptical.”
The evening of great conversation, featuring Walter Mondale and Hersh, moderated by Jacobs and titled “America’s Constitutional Crisis,” looked to be a mostly historical review of events that have tested our Constitution, by a journalist and a high government officials who had experience with many of the crises.
And it was mostly historical, and a great conversation, in which Hersh and Mondale talked about the patterns by which presidents seem to get intoxicated by executive power, frustrated by the limitations on that power from Congress and the public, drawn into improper covert actions that exceed their constitutional powers, in the belief that they can get results and will never be found out. Despite a few references to the Founding Fathers, the history was mostly recent, starting with the Vietnam War with much of it arising from the George W. Bush administration, which both men roundly denounced.
At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”
Replied Hersh:
“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.
"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...
"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.
"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.
"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.
"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.
"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee.?’
"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”
Hersh, the best-known investigative reporter of his generation, writes about these kinds of issues for The New Yorker. He has written often about JSOC, including, last July that:
“Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A. operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the field without congressional interference.”
Here are some other possible targets. Will we ever know? Will it ever be investigated?
Sid Adger..
Mr. Adger, a Houston oil supply company executive and Bush family friend, died in 1996 of unknown causes. Adger was the mysterious businessman who approached General James Rose and asked him to help George W. Bush avoid Vietnam by recommending him for a pilot position with the National Guard.
General James Rose..
General Rose recommended George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Texas National Guard. He died of unknown causes in 1993. He was immediately buried and no autopsy was performed.
Lt. Colonel William Harris, Jr...
Lt. Col. William Harris was one of two commanding officers who could not perform George W. Bush's annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973. They stated in their filing that "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." Fortunately for George W. Bush, Lt. Col. Harris is not here to verify his 1973 statement. He's dead.
Lt. Colonel Jerry B. Killian..
Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian was another of George W. Bush's commanding officers. He cannot testify in a court of law as to George W. Bush's dereliction of his sworn duty. Lt. Col. Killian is dead.
James Downing Aalund..
Mr. Aalund's name is the first on a long list of young Texans who died in Vietnam. These young men did not have influential fathers to pull the strings necessary to get them into the Texas Air National Guard. If they had been so lucky, they would surely have fulfilled their responsibilities to the ANG, if only out of gratitude that they did not have to die, thousands of miles away in a strange land. They surely would not have disappeared from duty for over a year, as did our fearless leader George W. Bush.
Enron - Bodies
J. Clifford Baxter...
Found dead in his car, shot in the head. Mr. Baxter was vice chairman of Enron Corp. when he resigned in May 2001. Enron has been hot copy lately with the revelation that they were the largest campaign contributors for George W. Bush. Was J. Clifford Baxter a potential witness to Bush foreknowledge of their wrongdoings? His death was ruled a suicide.
Charles Dana Rice...
He was the senior vice president and treasurer of El Paso Corp., an energy corporation swept up in the recent energy scandal. Two months after the "suicide" of Enron executive Clifford Baxter, in the midst of questions about the accounting practices of El Paso Corp., Charles Rice was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
James Daniel Watkins...
His body was found on December 1, 2001 in the Pike National Forest in Colorado, a gunshot wound to the head. Mr. Watkins was a consultant for Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm for Enron. He disappeared on November 13 after he left work. He was described as a devoted family man who always called home if he were going to be late. Officials initially said that the death was suspicious, but have changed their tune and have ruled his death a suicide.
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown...
He died in a plane crash on April 3, 1996. Was Ron Brown the first Enron body? In 1995 Enron officials accompanied Brown on a trade mission to India, and to Russia in 1994. Speculation among right-wing whackos suggests that our last duly-elected President, Bill Clinton, was somehow responsible for his death, but we wonder: was Secretary Brown privy to information that would conclusively link George W. Bush to Enron greed and corruption? Charles Meissner, Assistant Commerce Secretary, also died in this crash.
Jake Horton...
He was the senior vice-president of Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, a cohort of Enron in the energy industry, and a major contributer to the Bush! agenda. A ccording to reporter Gregory Palast, Horton knew of the company's appalling accounting practices, and "... had no doubt about its illegal campaign contributions to Florida politicans - he'd made the payments himself. In April of 1989 Horton decided to come clean with state officials, and reserved the company jet to go confront company officials. Ten minutes after takeoff the jet exploded.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,643422,00.html
Kennedy Assassination - Bodies
John Fitzgerald Kennedy...
An internal FBI memo reported that on November 22 a reputed businessman named George H. W. Bush reported hearsay that a certain Young Republican had been talking of killing the President when he came to Houston. The Young Republican was nowhere near Dallas on that date. According to a 1988 story in The Nation, J. Edgar Hoover said in a memo that Mr. George Bush of the CIA had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy. George H. W. Bush has denied this, although he was in Texas and cannot account for his whereabouts at the time.
Hale Boggs...
He sat on the Warren Commission, which concluded that President Kennedy was slain by a lone assassin. Later, in 1971 and '72, Boggs said that the Warren Report was false and that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI not only helped cover up the JFK murder but blackmailed Congress with massive wire-tapping and spying. He named Warren Commission staff member Arlen Specter as a major cover-up artist. Congressman Boggs' plane disappeared on a flight to Alaska in 1972. The press, the military, and the CIA publicly proclaimed the plane could not be located. Investigators later said that was a lie, that the plane had been found. On the plane were Nick Begich, a very popular Democratic Congressman, and Don Jonz, an aide to Mr. Boggs. All were killed.
George de Mohrenschildt...
A rich Russian oilman, he was described with his wife as being the two people friendliest to Oswald at the time of the assassination. De Mohrenschildt was the man who moved Oswald to Dallas. In the late 1970's, shortly before the first meeting of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, de Mohrenschildt started seeing a new doctor in town. He quickly became mentally unstable, at which time his wife convinced him to stop seeing the doctor. They moved away and left a false forwarding address. On the same day that the Committee tried to contact him about testifying, he was found dead of a gunshot wound. In his personal address book was the entry Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) and Zapata Petroleum Midland (the oil company owned by George H.W. Bush).
Mrs. E. Howard Hunt...
In December 1972, while George H. W. Bush was at the Republican National Convention, a United Airlines flight carrying Mrs. Dorothy Hunt, CIA operative and wife of Howard Hunt, (CIA operative and suspect in the Kennedy assassination) crashed. Believed to be carrying $25,000 in "hush money", she died in this crash.
George H.W. Bush - Bodies
Gary Caradori...
He was investigating Lawrence E. King, Jr., a very influential black Republican who was also a friend of George H.W. Bush. King was director of the Franklin Community Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, and was suspected of embezzling $40 million . The Nebraska Senate questioned child prostitutes, who accused King of running a child prostitution ring. One of these children said that she saw George H.W. Bush at one of King's parties. "Pronto", a newspaper in Barcelona, Spain, reported that the scandal "appears to directly implicate politicos of the state of Nebraska and Washington DC who are very close to the White House and George Bush himself". On July 11, 1990, Gary Caradori was killed along with his 6-year old son in the crash of his small plane, after a mid-air explosion, the cause of which was never discovered. He had told friends repeatedly in the weeks before his death that he was afraid his plane would be
sabotaged.
Orlando Letelier...
He was torn to bits by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC just before he was to testify against the Chilean dictator Pinochet. After the bombing, CIA Director George H. W. Bush told the FBI that there had been no Chilean involvement whatsoever. In 1991 the post-Pinochet Chilean Supreme Court asked George H. W. Bush if he would submit to questioning. BUSH REFUSED.
Ronni Moffit...
She was Letelier's assistant. She and her husband were riding in the car with Letelier when the bomb exploded. Mr. Moffit survived. Ronni didn't.
Jack Delaney and Ted White
These young men were killed when pilot George H. W. Bush abandoned his plane when it was hit by enemy fire. Much has been made of this story - Bush propaganda would have us believe that he was a hero. An eyewitness to the event tells us otherwise: Chester Mierzejewski, who was the turret gunner in another plane, had an unobstructed view. He states that he saw a "puff of smoke" come from Bush's plane and quickly dissipate. He states that the plane was never on fire and that Bush never attempted a water landing, which was standard procedure, and which would have given Mr. Delaney and Mr. White a chance.
Silent Voices - Bodies
Steve Kangas...
His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide. Mr. Kangas, a very prolific writer, left no note. He had brought a fully-packed suitcase of clothes with him to Pittsburgh. He bought a burglar alarm shortly before he left for Pittsburgh. Why did he need a burglar alarm if he was going to commit suicide? An avowed advocate of gun control, he nevertheless bought a gun. What was he afraid of? Why did he go to Pittsburgh? After his death, his computer was sold for $150 and its hard drive wiped clean. Everything in his apartment was thrown away.
Danny Casolaro...
He was working on a book that tied together the scandals surrounding the presidency of George H. W. Bush. He told his friends he was going to "bring back" the head of the Octopus. Instead, his body was found in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991, an apparent suicide.
Mark Lombardi...
He was an accomplished conceptual artist who, while chatting on the phone with a banker friend about the Bush savings and loan scandal, started doodling a diagram and was inspired to create a complex series of drawings and sketches that charted the details of the scandal. According to the New York Times, "He was soon charting the complex matrices of personal and professional relationships, conflict of interest, malfeasance and fraud uncovered by investigations into the major financial and political scandals of the day; to keep facts and sources straight, he created a handwritten database that now includes around 12,000 3-by-5-inch cards."
On the evening of March 22, 2000, Mark Lombardi was found hanging in his loft, an apparent suicide.
James Hatfield...
Mr. Hatfield was the author of Fortunate Son, an unauthorized biography of George W. Bush. The book detailed Bush's cocaine use and cover up of a cocaine arrest. He was found Wednesday, July 18, in a motel room, an apparent suicide.
Prescott Bush - Bodies
William S. Farish...
He was one of Prescott Bush's partners in business deals with Adolph Hitler. He was devastated by the intense grilling he received from the Senate about his dealings with Nazis, and while Prescott Bush skated free, Farish collapsed and died on November 29, 1942.
James Forrestal...
He was U.S. Secretary of Defense, and become a problem for Prescott Bush when he proposed racial integration of the Armed Forces. On March 28, 1949, he was forced out of office and flown on a military plane to Jupiter Island in Florida. From there he was taken to Walter Reed Army Hospi! tal, where he was given insulin shock treatments. He was shielded from all visitors except his estranged wife. From "George Bush, the Unauthorized Biography":
On May 22, Forrestal's body was found, his bathrobe cord tied tightly around his neck, after he had plunged from a sixteenth-story hospital window. The chief psychiatrist called the death a suicide even before any investigation was started. The results of the Army's inquest were kept secret. Forrestal's diaries were published, 80 percent deleted, after a year of direct government censorship and rewriting Texas
Justice - Bodies
Karla Faye Tucker...
She was executed in spite of enormous protest from the public, even those religious groups that advocate the death penalty. Even Pat Robertson thought that Karla was truly repentant and asked George W. Bush to spare her life. He refused. Afterward, in a Talk Magazine interview, Bush mocked the woman whose death warrant he had sanctioned, pursing his lips and whimpering, "Please don't kill me!"
David Wayne Spence...
David Wayne Spence was executed in Texas in 1997 in spite of compelling evidence of his innocence. Two of the State's witnesses were co-defendants who testified to avoid the death penalty, one of whom changed his story three times in response to discrepancies. He later testified that D.A. Simons encouraged him to alter his testimony. Two other witnesses for the State were jailhouse snitches who recanted later and stated that Simons offered them favors in exchange for testimony. All of this and more was supposedly reviewed by Governor George W. Bush, but Bush refused to commute his sentence, and did not order the Board of Pardons and Paroles to review his request for clemency. It is a myth that a Texas Governor can do nothing to stop executions; the Board will almost always go with his recommendation. Bush washed his hands of the matter and did nothing. Reasonable doubt is not a factor in Texas justice.
Gary Graham...
Gary Graham was convicted of the robbery and murder of a white man in 1981. Nearly two weeks after the crime, the state's prime witness could not pick Gary's picture out of a photo line-up. Mr. Graham was arrested with a 22 caliber pistol. The victim had been killed with a 22, but the police firearms examiner determined that Mr. Graham's gun DID NOT fire the fatal bullet. Four witnesses said Gary Graham was with them, miles away from the convenience store, when the murder occured. All four took and passed polygraph tests. George W. Bush, predictably, expressed his faith in the Texas judicial system and allowed Mr. Graham to be put to death. Mr. Graham maintained his innocence to the end.
http://www.greaterthings.com/News/Dubya/
Iran Contra - Bodies
Olof Palme...
He was the prime minister of Sweden, assassinated in 1986. Oliver North, the golden boy of the Bush/Reagan machine, had met with Mr. Palme to discuss the possibility of obtaining false end-user certificates for the plethora of weapons that were being purchased, so that they would seem to have come from a country other than the U.S. Mr. Palme refused to participate, after the plan was presented to him. He was dead within weeks.
William Casey...
William Casey was CIA Director during the Reagan/Bush Administration. He died 2 days before he was to testify about his and others' involvement in the Iran/Contra scandal.
Edmond J. Safra...
Banker Edmond J. Safra died mysteriously when a fire swept his Monaco penthouse apartment. His banks had been used for laundering money by the Bush Iran/Contra traitors.
Charles M. McKee and Matthew Gannon
Charles M. McKee, ostensibly a military attache for the DIA in Beirut, Matthew Gannon, CIA Deputy Station Chief in Beirut, and three others were on board Pan Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. They were part of a counterterrorist team in Beirut investigating the possible rescue of 9 American hostages in Lebanon. The McKee team uncovered evidence that a rogue CIA unit called COREA, based in Wiesbaden, was doing business with a man called Monzer Al-Kassar, a Syrian arms dealer and drug trafficker. Al-Kassar was part of the covert network run by U.S. Lieut. Colonel Oliver North. Outraged that the COREA unit in Wiesbaden was doing business with a Syrian who had close terrorist connections and might endanger their chances of rescuing the hostages, the McKee team decided to fly back to Virginia unannounced and expose the COREA unit's secret deal with al-Kassar. They never got there. "For three years, I've had a feeling that if Chuck hadn't been on that plane, it wouldn't have been bombed," said Beulah McKee, 75, Charles McKee's mother, to Time Magazine. Four months after her son was killed for his efforts to expose the CIA, Mrs. McKee received a sympathy letter from George H. W. Bush. Mrs. McKee has never been satisfied with the government's version of events.
Don Aronow...
He was a close friend of George H. W. Bush. According to the book "George Bush, the Unauthorized Biography," there is compelling evidence to conclude that Aronow was a drug smuggler and suspected drug-money launderer. He was murdered by professional killers on February 3, 1987. In the days before his death, he made many personal calls to George H. W. Bush.
Tommy Teagle, a man interviewed by author Thomas Burdick, was afraid of being murdered by Bush because he had knowledge that Aronow and Jeb Bush had been partners in cocaine trafficking.
Michael Hand...
He was a Green Beret and an Army Colonel assigned to the CIA. He ran the Nugan Hand Bank, a front for CIA drug money, in Sydney, Australia. He was in frequent contact with George Bush after his election to Vice President, according to CIA operative Trento Parker. Michael Hand was found in his car on a remote road outside Sydney, an apparent suicide. There were no fingerprints on the gun.
September 11, 2001 - Bodies
Bob Stevens...
Mr. Stevens died of a mysterious case of anthrax. He worked as a photo editor for American Media, who owns the National Enquirer. The Bush family suffered enormous embarrassment at the hands of the Enquirer when they published a photo of daughter Jenna Bush, obviously intoxicated, cigarette in hand, cavorting on the floor with another drunken female.
Don C. Wiley...
Dr. Wiley disappeared November 15, 2001 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was attending a two-day annual meeting of the scientific advisory board of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. His work on deadly diseases such as ebola and HIV raised fears of a terrorist kidnapping. Four hours later, his rental car was found on a bridge, raising the question of suicide, which his family vehemently refuted. Dr. Wiley was found a month later in the Mississipi River.
Salem bin Laden...
In 1979 Bush business Arbusto Energy obtained financing from James Bath, a close family friend. Bath had extensive ties to BCCI and the bin Laden family. Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, the brother of Osama bin Laden. It is well known in certain circles that the Arbusto money came straight from Salem bin Laden, although Bush denies it. Salem bin Laden died when for no apparent reason, he flew his airplane into power lines where it became entangled, and fell 150 feet to the ground. "He was a very experienced pilot. He was a good pilot. We just can't understand why he decided to go right instead of left," recalled airstrip owner Earl May field.
Thomas Morris Jr....
Mr. Morris was a postal worker who died October 21, 2001, of inhalation anthrax. When people expressed concern to the current occupant of the White House about the anthrax cases in New York and Washington, his response was to tell us not to worry, that he does not have anthrax.
Joseph Curseen...
Mr. Curseen died October 22, 2001, of inhalation anthrax. It has been reported that the anthrax infections since September 11 are of the same strain that was kept in a military facility.
Kathy T. Nguyen...
Ms. Nguyen died on October 31, 2001, of inhalation anthrax. But we shouldn't worry - George W. Bush remains anthrax-free.
Katherine Smith...
She had been implicated in February in a phony passport scheme said to be related to the September 11 hijackers. One day before she was due in court, she was incinerated in her car after having hit a utility pole. An investigation revealed that the crash was minor and was not the cause of the fire that burned Smith beyond recognition. Who was really behind 9/11? Was Katherine Smith privy to that information? Why did she have to die, and who killed her?
...and last, but not least,
Margie Schoedinger...
She filed suit against George W. Bush for rape..
Posted by: Don Smith Thursday, 12 March 2009, 12:18 pm
Not to worry-these coincidental deaths are just part of the random order of things.
Obama would look into a criminal conspiracy of this nature,right?
It's just serenipity.
Posted by: Antifascist Sunday, 19 April 2009, 11:57 am
QUOTE
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/19/napoliano-dhs-report/
April 19th, 2009
thinkprogress.org
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released a report finding that right-wing extremist groups inside the United States may be gaining new recruits and that they are targeting veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, conservative critics — led by Fox News — have been up in arms, with some claiming that the report shows that the Obama administration is waging a “war on veterans.” Today on CNN, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said that she regrets the politicization of the report that has ensued, but stands by its conclusion:
NAPOLITANO: Here is the important point. The report is not saying that veterans are extremists. Far from it. What it is saying is returning veterans are targets of right-wing extremist groups that are trying to recruit those to commit violent acts within the country. We want to do all we can to prevent that.
April 19th, 2009
thinkprogress.org
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released a report finding that right-wing extremist groups inside the United States may be gaining new recruits and that they are targeting veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, conservative critics — led by Fox News — have been up in arms, with some claiming that the report shows that the Obama administration is waging a “war on veterans.” Today on CNN, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said that she regrets the politicization of the report that has ensued, but stands by its conclusion:
NAPOLITANO: Here is the important point. The report is not saying that veterans are extremists. Far from it. What it is saying is returning veterans are targets of right-wing extremist groups that are trying to recruit those to commit violent acts within the country. We want to do all we can to prevent that.
The Army and Veterans groups were the two key organizations that gave Hitler his chance. They provided him with an audience, money, training, and a network of hight level contacts that launched his political career. Otherwise, Hitler would have remained a bookish Vienna vagabond.
QUOTE
“The German Army, contrary to its traditions, was now deep in politics, especially in Bavaria, where at last it had established a government to its liking. To further its conservative views it gave the soldiers courses of "political instruction," in one of which Adolf Hitler was an attentive pupil. One day, according to his own story, he intervened during a lecture in which someone had said a good work for the Jews. His anti-Semitic harangue apparently so please his superior officers, a Bildungsoffizier, whose main task was to combat dangerous ideas-pacifism, socialism, democracy; such was the Army's conception of its role in the democratic Republic it had sworn to serve.
This was an important break for Hitler, the first recognition he had won in the field of politics he was now trying to enter....
...Such was the weird assortment of misfits who founded National Socialism, who unknowingly began to shape a movement which in thirteen years would sweep the country, the strongest in Europe, and bring to Germany its Third Reich. The confused locksmith Drexler provided the kernel, the drunken poet Eckart some of the “spiritual” foundation, the economic crank Drexler what passed as an ideology, the homosexual Roehm the support of the Army and the war veterans, but it was now the former tramp, Adolf Hitler, not quite thirty-one and utterly unknown, who took the lead in building up what had been no more than a back-room debating society into what would soon become a formidable political party. ….(Rise and Fall of [b]The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 35-39)"
This was an important break for Hitler, the first recognition he had won in the field of politics he was now trying to enter....
...Such was the weird assortment of misfits who founded National Socialism, who unknowingly began to shape a movement which in thirteen years would sweep the country, the strongest in Europe, and bring to Germany its Third Reich. The confused locksmith Drexler provided the kernel, the drunken poet Eckart some of the “spiritual” foundation, the economic crank Drexler what passed as an ideology, the homosexual Roehm the support of the Army and the war veterans, but it was now the former tramp, Adolf Hitler, not quite thirty-one and utterly unknown, who took the lead in building up what had been no more than a back-room debating society into what would soon become a formidable political party. ….(Rise and Fall of [b]The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 35-39)"
Posted by: Antifascist Saturday, 20 June 2009, 9:04 pm
QUOTE
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/some-neighborhood-watch-fordes-minut
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Remember how all those right-wing pundits proclaimed the Minutemen as being just like a neighborhood watch? http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43548 called it "the mother of all neighborhood watches." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/20/ldt.01.html labeled it "this country's biggest neighborhood watch program". http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=217 declared: "Talking Points applauds the Minutemen. They are in the great tradition of neighborhood watch groups."
Boy, that sure is http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/297176:
Accused ringleader Shawna Forde told her family in recent months that she had begun recruiting members of the Aryan Nations and that she planned to begin robbing drug-cartel leaders, her brother Merrill Metzger said Monday in a telephone interview from Redding, Calif.
"She was talking about starting a revolution against the United States government," he said.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/some-neighborhood-watch-fordes-minut made by the victim who survived -- the mother of 9-year-old Brisenia Flores, who was shot "two or three times" while her mother lay nearby. As she's on the phone, you can hear the killers return and open fire on her again, and hear her return fire:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/297297.php
The accused shooter, Jason Eugene Bush, was charged Friday in the 1997 murder of a sleeping, homeless Hispanic man in Wenatchee, Wash.
"Bush has had long-standing ties to the Aryan Nations," Sgt. John Kruse of the Wenatchee police wrote in a statement filed in Chelan County Superior Court.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department arrested Forde, Bush and Arivaca resident Albert Robert Gaxiola on Friday and accused them of killing Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia, 9, during a home invasion. Flores' wife was injured during the attack and returned fire, wounding Bush, investigators said.
Forde, 41, who has lived primarily in Everett, Wash., was the executive director of Minutemen American Defense, and she had named Bush the "operations director" for the group's border-watch activities along the Arizona-Mexico border.
... Forde's brother, Metzger, worked for the organization at its inception years ago, but he quit, he said, "when it started to get too deep."
He and other family members grew suspicious of Forde and started talking to police about her after her husband was shot in their Everett home in December.
That's why, Metzger said, he had an audio recorder running when she visited his Northern California home in early May.
"She sat right here on my couch and told me that she was going to start an underground militia. This militia was going to start robbing drug-cartel dealers — rob them and steal their money or drugs," Metzger said.
... Investigators think the May 30 robbery was intended to be the first in a series of such attacks intended to fund the border-watch group and a new venture, O'Connor said. Forde planned on starting a business of helping free kidnap victims in other countries, he said.
She also spoke of the venture to her brother, he said.
"She was telling me that they were going to start some sort of militia that was going to go overseas and aid and abet those who are kidnapped. She said she was going to go to Syria," he said.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen_18.html that this was precisely the arc of flight that the Minuteman movement was taking:
This is, after all, an organization that has indicated it intends to expand its purview. And the concept of the Minutemen as a right-wing citizen vigilante force has uses well beyond even border patrols. These endorsements may wind up giving the Minutemen more than their 15 seconds of fame -- and that could be a problem for many years to come.
The problem, as always, is itshttp://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/05/new-vigilantes.html:
The reality-based picture of the Minutemen that's emerging is not of a friendly "neighborhood watch" for the border, but of a chaotic collection of hatemongers who seem intent on a kind of populist mob rule fueled by angry paranoia. It becomes a cover not for law and order, but for the ugliest kind of brutal authoritarianism.
That, in fact, is the face that vigilantism has always revealed eventually, even in Montana. As the history of the vigilantes revealed later, their early "victories" over predators like Henry Plummer soon gave way to a vicious lawlessness in which people were summarily hanged not just for horse theft but for drunken misbehavior or breaking out of a jail.
... You see, vigilantism always claims to be about law and order and preserving "traditional values." It is always, in the end, about the brutal imposition of mob rule without regard to the humanity of its targets. The proof, in the end, lies in the strange fruit it inevitably produces.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Remember how all those right-wing pundits proclaimed the Minutemen as being just like a neighborhood watch? http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43548 called it "the mother of all neighborhood watches." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/20/ldt.01.html labeled it "this country's biggest neighborhood watch program". http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=217 declared: "Talking Points applauds the Minutemen. They are in the great tradition of neighborhood watch groups."
Boy, that sure is http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/297176:
Accused ringleader Shawna Forde told her family in recent months that she had begun recruiting members of the Aryan Nations and that she planned to begin robbing drug-cartel leaders, her brother Merrill Metzger said Monday in a telephone interview from Redding, Calif.
"She was talking about starting a revolution against the United States government," he said.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/some-neighborhood-watch-fordes-minut made by the victim who survived -- the mother of 9-year-old Brisenia Flores, who was shot "two or three times" while her mother lay nearby. As she's on the phone, you can hear the killers return and open fire on her again, and hear her return fire:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/297297.php
The accused shooter, Jason Eugene Bush, was charged Friday in the 1997 murder of a sleeping, homeless Hispanic man in Wenatchee, Wash.
"Bush has had long-standing ties to the Aryan Nations," Sgt. John Kruse of the Wenatchee police wrote in a statement filed in Chelan County Superior Court.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department arrested Forde, Bush and Arivaca resident Albert Robert Gaxiola on Friday and accused them of killing Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia, 9, during a home invasion. Flores' wife was injured during the attack and returned fire, wounding Bush, investigators said.
Forde, 41, who has lived primarily in Everett, Wash., was the executive director of Minutemen American Defense, and she had named Bush the "operations director" for the group's border-watch activities along the Arizona-Mexico border.
... Forde's brother, Metzger, worked for the organization at its inception years ago, but he quit, he said, "when it started to get too deep."
He and other family members grew suspicious of Forde and started talking to police about her after her husband was shot in their Everett home in December.
That's why, Metzger said, he had an audio recorder running when she visited his Northern California home in early May.
"She sat right here on my couch and told me that she was going to start an underground militia. This militia was going to start robbing drug-cartel dealers — rob them and steal their money or drugs," Metzger said.
... Investigators think the May 30 robbery was intended to be the first in a series of such attacks intended to fund the border-watch group and a new venture, O'Connor said. Forde planned on starting a business of helping free kidnap victims in other countries, he said.
She also spoke of the venture to her brother, he said.
"She was telling me that they were going to start some sort of militia that was going to go overseas and aid and abet those who are kidnapped. She said she was going to go to Syria," he said.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/march-of-minutemen_18.html that this was precisely the arc of flight that the Minuteman movement was taking:
This is, after all, an organization that has indicated it intends to expand its purview. And the concept of the Minutemen as a right-wing citizen vigilante force has uses well beyond even border patrols. These endorsements may wind up giving the Minutemen more than their 15 seconds of fame -- and that could be a problem for many years to come.
The problem, as always, is itshttp://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/05/new-vigilantes.html:
The reality-based picture of the Minutemen that's emerging is not of a friendly "neighborhood watch" for the border, but of a chaotic collection of hatemongers who seem intent on a kind of populist mob rule fueled by angry paranoia. It becomes a cover not for law and order, but for the ugliest kind of brutal authoritarianism.
That, in fact, is the face that vigilantism has always revealed eventually, even in Montana. As the history of the vigilantes revealed later, their early "victories" over predators like Henry Plummer soon gave way to a vicious lawlessness in which people were summarily hanged not just for horse theft but for drunken misbehavior or breaking out of a jail.
... You see, vigilantism always claims to be about law and order and preserving "traditional values." It is always, in the end, about the brutal imposition of mob rule without regard to the humanity of its targets. The proof, in the end, lies in the strange fruit it inevitably produces.
Posted by: Antifascist Wednesday, 12 August 2009, 11:58 pm
QUOTE
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/12/officials-see-rise-in-mil_n_257128.html
EILEEN SULLIVAN | 08/12/09 03:50 AM | AP
WASHINGTON — Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends.
The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.
Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is the most growth he's seen in more than a decade.
"All it's lacking is a spark," McEntire said in the report.
It's reminiscent of what was seen in the 1990s – right-wing militias, people ideologically against paying taxes and so-called "sovereign citizens" are popping up in large numbers, according to the report to be released Wednesday. The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights group that, among other activities, investigates hate groups.
Last October, someone from the Ohio Militia posted a recruiting video on YouTube, billed as a "wake-up call" for America. It's been viewed more than 60,000 times.
"Things are bad, things are real bad, and it's going to be a lot worse," said the man on the video, who did not give his name. "Our country is in peril."
The man is holding an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, and he encourages viewers to buy one.
While anti-government sentiment has been on the rise over the last two years, there aren't as many threats and violent acts at this point as there were in the 1990s, according to the report. That movement bore the likes of Timothy McVeigh, who in 1995 blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people.
But McEntire fears it's only a matter of time.
These militias are concentrated in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and the Deep South, according to Mark Potok, an SPLC staff director who co-wrote the report. Recruiting videos and other outreach on the Internet are on the rise, he said, and researchers from his center found at least 50 new groups in the last few months.
The militia movement of the 1990s gained traction with growing concerns about gun control, environmental laws and anything perceived as liberal government meddling.
The spark for that movement came in 1992 with an FBI standoff with white separatist Randall Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Weaver's wife and son were killed by an FBI sniper. And in 1993, a 52-day standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas, resulted in nearly 80 deaths. These events rallied more people who became convinced that the government would murder its own citizens to promote its liberal agenda.
Now officials are seeing a new generation of activists, according to the report. The law center spotlights Edward Koernke, a Michigan man who hosts an Internet radio show about militias. His father, Mark, was a major figure in the 1990s militia movement and served six years in prison for charges including assaulting police.
Last year, officials warned about an increase in activity from militias in a five-year threat projection by the Homeland Security Department.
"White supremacists and militias are more violent and thus more likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks on the scale of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing," the threat projection said.
A series of domestic terrorism incidents over the past year have not been directly tied to organized militias, but the rhetoric behind some of the crimes are similar with that of the militia movement. For instance, the man charged with the April killings of three Pittsburgh police officers posted some of his views online. Richard Andrew Poplawski wrote that U.S. troops could be used against American citizens, and he thinks a gun ban could be coming.
The FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, Michael Heimbach, said that law enforcement officials need to identify people who go beyond hateful rhetoric and decide to commit violent acts and crimes. Heimbach said one of the bigger challenges is identifying the lone-wolf offenders.
One alleged example of a lone-wolf offender is the 88-year-old man charged in the June shooting death of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
EILEEN SULLIVAN | 08/12/09 03:50 AM | AP
WASHINGTON — Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends.
The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.
Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is the most growth he's seen in more than a decade.
"All it's lacking is a spark," McEntire said in the report.
It's reminiscent of what was seen in the 1990s – right-wing militias, people ideologically against paying taxes and so-called "sovereign citizens" are popping up in large numbers, according to the report to be released Wednesday. The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights group that, among other activities, investigates hate groups.
Last October, someone from the Ohio Militia posted a recruiting video on YouTube, billed as a "wake-up call" for America. It's been viewed more than 60,000 times.
"Things are bad, things are real bad, and it's going to be a lot worse," said the man on the video, who did not give his name. "Our country is in peril."
The man is holding an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, and he encourages viewers to buy one.
While anti-government sentiment has been on the rise over the last two years, there aren't as many threats and violent acts at this point as there were in the 1990s, according to the report. That movement bore the likes of Timothy McVeigh, who in 1995 blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people.
But McEntire fears it's only a matter of time.
These militias are concentrated in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and the Deep South, according to Mark Potok, an SPLC staff director who co-wrote the report. Recruiting videos and other outreach on the Internet are on the rise, he said, and researchers from his center found at least 50 new groups in the last few months.
The militia movement of the 1990s gained traction with growing concerns about gun control, environmental laws and anything perceived as liberal government meddling.
The spark for that movement came in 1992 with an FBI standoff with white separatist Randall Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Weaver's wife and son were killed by an FBI sniper. And in 1993, a 52-day standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas, resulted in nearly 80 deaths. These events rallied more people who became convinced that the government would murder its own citizens to promote its liberal agenda.
Now officials are seeing a new generation of activists, according to the report. The law center spotlights Edward Koernke, a Michigan man who hosts an Internet radio show about militias. His father, Mark, was a major figure in the 1990s militia movement and served six years in prison for charges including assaulting police.
Last year, officials warned about an increase in activity from militias in a five-year threat projection by the Homeland Security Department.
"White supremacists and militias are more violent and thus more likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks on the scale of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing," the threat projection said.
A series of domestic terrorism incidents over the past year have not been directly tied to organized militias, but the rhetoric behind some of the crimes are similar with that of the militia movement. For instance, the man charged with the April killings of three Pittsburgh police officers posted some of his views online. Richard Andrew Poplawski wrote that U.S. troops could be used against American citizens, and he thinks a gun ban could be coming.
The FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, Michael Heimbach, said that law enforcement officials need to identify people who go beyond hateful rhetoric and decide to commit violent acts and crimes. Heimbach said one of the bigger challenges is identifying the lone-wolf offenders.
One alleged example of a lone-wolf offender is the 88-year-old man charged in the June shooting death of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Posted by: Antifascist Wednesday, 19 August 2009, 12:34 pm
Thom Hartmann is discussing this morning on his radio show the gun totters at health care rallies and how during the Bush administration progressives were arrested for wearing http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/%5Cnews.aspx?id=18932 at a Bush rally or even thrown out for have a progress bumper sticker like "No oil for blood." Remember the freespeech zones of the Bush admin? 
But more importantly Thom discussed how the Right Wing created the atmosphere for violence that lead to Kennedy's assassination. The rules are clear: the right extremist can attend presidential rallies with assault weapons but progressives can be imprisoned for exercising the right to free speech. It is only going to get worst. We have seen this movie before.
QUOTE
The storm troopers, outfitted in brown uniforms, were recruited largely from the freebooters of the free corps and placed under the command of Johann Ulrich Klintzich, an aide of the notorious Captain Ehrhardt, who had recently been released from imprisonment in connection with the murder of Erzberger. These uniformed rowdies, not content to keep order at Nazi meetings, soon took to breaking up those of the other parties. Once in 1921 Hitler personally led his storm troopers in an attack on a meeting which was to be addressed by a Bavarian federalist by the name of Ballerstedt, who received a beating. For this Hitler was sentenced to three months in jail, one of which he served. This was his first experience in jail and he emerged from it somewhat of a martyr and more popular than ever. "It's all right," Hitler boasted to the police. "We got what we wanted. Ballerstedt did not speak." As Hitler had told an audience some months before, "The National Socialist Movement will in the future ruthlessly prevent-if necessary by force-all meetings or lectures that are likely to distract the minds of our fellow countrymen.""' (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 45)"
“Erzberger had been murdered in August 1921. In June 1922, there was an attempt to assassinate Philip Scheidemann, the Socialist who had proclaimed the Republic. The same month, June 24, Foreign Minister Rathenau was shot dead in the street. In all three cases the assassins had been men of the extreme Right. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 51)"
“The administrators of the law became one of the centers of the counterrevolution, perverting justice for reactionary political ends…Franz L. Neumann declared, “that political justice is the blackest page in the life of the German Republic…Yet hundreds of German liberals were sentenced to long prison terms on charges of treason because they revealed or denounced in the press or by speech the Army’s constant violations of the Versailles Treaty. The treason laws were ruthlessly applied to the supporters of the Republic; those of the Right who tried to overthrow it, as Adolf Hitler was soon to learn, got off either free or with the lightest sentences. Even the assassins, if they were of the Right and their victims democrats, were leniently treated by the courts or, as often happened, helped to escape from the custody of the courts by Army officers and right-wing extremists. ” (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 60-61)
“Erzberger had been murdered in August 1921. In June 1922, there was an attempt to assassinate Philip Scheidemann, the Socialist who had proclaimed the Republic. The same month, June 24, Foreign Minister Rathenau was shot dead in the street. In all three cases the assassins had been men of the extreme Right. (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 51)"
“The administrators of the law became one of the centers of the counterrevolution, perverting justice for reactionary political ends…Franz L. Neumann declared, “that political justice is the blackest page in the life of the German Republic…Yet hundreds of German liberals were sentenced to long prison terms on charges of treason because they revealed or denounced in the press or by speech the Army’s constant violations of the Versailles Treaty. The treason laws were ruthlessly applied to the supporters of the Republic; those of the Right who tried to overthrow it, as Adolf Hitler was soon to learn, got off either free or with the lightest sentences. Even the assassins, if they were of the Right and their victims democrats, were leniently treated by the courts or, as often happened, helped to escape from the custody of the courts by Army officers and right-wing extremists. ” (Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Simon and Schuster 1960, William L. Shirer, pp. 60-61)
Dan Thompson, 51, of Canton, Mich., center, speaks out against health care reform and yells at others during Congressman John D. Dingell's town hall meeting in Romulus, Mich. on Thursday.
A snapshot taken by Eastern Shore blogger Joe Albero on Monday during a sparsely attended anti-health care protest -- showing a cardboard cut-out of U.S. Rep. Frank M. Kratovil, Jr. (D) dangling by a noose. The event -- a rally in Salisbury, Md. on the Eastern Shore -- was attended by members of the business-funded Americans for Prosperity, a group that includes James Miller, a Federal Trade Commission chairman and budget director during the Reagan administration.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/08/watch-man-carries-an-assault-rifle-outside-obama-event.php the man who organized "Chris's" ( man in picture with rifle) trip to the Obama event and himself came to the event armed, had close ties to a violent militia group charged with plotting to blow up federal buildings in the mid-1990s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lyaMrS0hzk at the Denver Center of Performing Arts in Denver, CO on June 7 because she was brandishing a deadly memetic weapon: a hand-lettered sign that read "McCain=Bush."
Posted by: Antifascist Thursday, 3 September 2009, 9:28 am
QUOTE
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/09/healthcare-opponent-punches-65-year-old-supporter/
September 2nd, 2009
rawstory.com
For political drama, there's always Florida.
A 65-year-old man cheering healthcare reform in Miami was punched in the face and knocked to the ground by an opponent of a public health plan, according to a reporter at the scene. The rally took place outside a Great Miami Chamber of Commerce event where Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL - below right) was speaking.
"Luis Perrero of Coral Gables was standing among about 40 Democratic activists and union workers when a man in a Ford pick-up truck pulled up to the rally at Jungle Island and began arguing with the crowd," the Herald's Tolouse Oloronippa blogged Wednesday. "The man, who only gave his first name as Raul, said Perrero called him a Spanish curse word. He punched Perrero in the face. Perrero fell to the ground and lay motionless for a few minutes."
"I'm amazed the way this has become such a politicized issue,'' Perrero told Oloronippa. "It shows that people who are against the public option will resort to anything, including battery on a senior citizen to prevent healthcare reform.''
"It was totally uncalled for," Wilhelmina Ford, another public healthcare supporter quipped. "The guy may have had words with him but he didn't have to hit him in the face.''
Nelson, a conservative Democrat, has signaled his opposition to a public health plan. On Sunday, he said that healthcare reform would pass in some form -- but without a public option, which would allow the federal government to compete with private health insurers on price and likely drive down costs.
"The public option is only one of hundreds of issues concerned with health care reform," Nelson quipped. "Public option means different things to different people. Some people think of it as socialized medicine, but that type is not and has not ever been considered."
"Any public option will not pass," he added.
-John Byrne
September 2nd, 2009
rawstory.com
For political drama, there's always Florida.
A 65-year-old man cheering healthcare reform in Miami was punched in the face and knocked to the ground by an opponent of a public health plan, according to a reporter at the scene. The rally took place outside a Great Miami Chamber of Commerce event where Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL - below right) was speaking.
"Luis Perrero of Coral Gables was standing among about 40 Democratic activists and union workers when a man in a Ford pick-up truck pulled up to the rally at Jungle Island and began arguing with the crowd," the Herald's Tolouse Oloronippa blogged Wednesday. "The man, who only gave his first name as Raul, said Perrero called him a Spanish curse word. He punched Perrero in the face. Perrero fell to the ground and lay motionless for a few minutes."
"I'm amazed the way this has become such a politicized issue,'' Perrero told Oloronippa. "It shows that people who are against the public option will resort to anything, including battery on a senior citizen to prevent healthcare reform.''
"It was totally uncalled for," Wilhelmina Ford, another public healthcare supporter quipped. "The guy may have had words with him but he didn't have to hit him in the face.''
Nelson, a conservative Democrat, has signaled his opposition to a public health plan. On Sunday, he said that healthcare reform would pass in some form -- but without a public option, which would allow the federal government to compete with private health insurers on price and likely drive down costs.
"The public option is only one of hundreds of issues concerned with health care reform," Nelson quipped. "Public option means different things to different people. Some people think of it as socialized medicine, but that type is not and has not ever been considered."
"Any public option will not pass," he added.
-John Byrne
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