I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
But congress didn't pass a law, it was an "activist judges" fault.
well, it did say congress.
We'd better hope this subpoena gets quashed.
The implications are enormous. Bastards.
just when you think things can't get any worse...
I'm not overly worried about a single subpoena. If it's OK'ed it won't be anything out of the ordinary for the past year or so at least. The question I have is can we trust our Democratic leaders to stand up for us? Kucinich has. Dean has a little bit. Have any of the rest?
Read a good article (from AntiWar.com link, I think) on this issue. Soldiers worried about their own parents getting arrested! Irony abounds!
I think I need a drink now.
it's not funny anymore.
they're losing the hearts and minds, so now comes the big crackdown.
What do they expect, what with being traitors and all... We're supposed to not worry about things like this because no one has yet taken up the other wingnut pundits' cries to line up the Democratic candidates and shoot them... but there's still time. This is worrisome; I thought Nixon was going to be bad news in 1968, but that was nothing; Reagan was nothing. These guys are the real deal. Any Republican who doesn't repudiate them is an unAmerican doctrinaire idiot.
What do you expect? The Reichstag was attacked with ricin by anti-war activists, so we must round them all up for the good of the homeland.
Dissent will be a "shoot-on-sight" offense by the time the (s)election rolls around.
Do you suppose this was done to send a message to anyone thinking about protesting the Rethugs in New York?
Every person who plans on joining any demonstration this summer in New York ought to have the first amendment hanging around his/her neck.
Archibald MacLeish:
The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
"Peaceable assembly."
Considering the death tolls of both Americans and Iraqis, can we safely say that this means meetings between Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Bush to plan the war wre not constitutionally protected? Will they be subpoenaed soon?
I'm confused (and I'm not joking): was this done under the PATRIOT act? I mean, if now, how on Earth can they do it? If it were done under the PATRIOT act, would they even have to say that it was?
Can anyone clarify the situation?
Somehwere in hell Himmler and Gobbels are laughing.....
and they think we're paranoid?
and they think we're engaging in hyperbole when we call the Bush regime, 'fascist'?
Fascism, pure and simple.
Torches and pitchforks may be the only solution left, before long.
hey look over there! It's Janet Jackson's tit!
hey look over there! It's Janet Jackson's tit!
Our slogan this year should be: More Tits, Less War!
woo hooo!
It's the sixties all over again!
Back then, bright young men in crew cuts, white shirts and ties burned Beatles records and beat anti war protesters.
Well they grew up and now are nostalgic for the sixties.
They wanna kick some hippie anti- war ass again.
You are just envious that my people have the power and you have none.
I don't think a copy of the Bill of Rights around your neck at the RNC convention will keep a police baton from cracking your skull open.
cosmic grapler, as a veteran protestor, said we should try to get hit in the forehead to make for more graphic bloody images for broadcast media.
Only total anarchy will save the country soon.
"These guys are the real deal. Any Republican who doesn't repudiate them is an unAmerican doctrinaire idiot.
QrazyQat"
They know it's going fascist. But they figure it wont affect them because they'll be the ones goose-stepping along in charge.
The last line of the article was the frightening part.
A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena.
A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena.
That's why I'm suspecting the PATRIOT act.
Again, anyone have any insights?
This is why it's so important to make sure Bush doesn't get to stack the courts. The "justice" branch is in his pocket, pretty much, already. Republican and a few Democratically appointed judges will destroy the Bill of Rights and the press won't raise their lilly pure tongues to protest.
Send Hatch back to his permanent pout. Get rid of ALL Republicans.
All I can say is that surely there is a new Kunstler somewhere who didn't know it but was just waiting for something like this to cause him to emerge and start kicking some government ass. Either that, or it's pitchforks all around and chartered buses to Iowa to straighten these folks out. This can't be allowed to happen - this is not only un-American, it is profoundly anti-American.
Apparently they're tying to say it's because a protest at the Iowa national guard base or something the next day involved an activist getting arrested for assualting an officer...
Just like when that ___spahn guy or whatever his name was attacked those nice upstanding aryans so's they had to have Kristallnacht.
Am I crazy here?
It is happening, right? I mean, if things don't change fast, what will it be like to live here a decade from now?
What this country has become just breaks my heart. Over and over again. How many times must people have to fight to gain the ability to exercise their constitutional rights in this land?
cosmic grapler, as a veteran protestor, said we should try to get hit in the forehead to make for more graphic bloody images for broadcast media.
Hey this is a great idea! In the WWE they use hidden razor blades to cut themselves on the forehead. Head cuts bleed like crazy all over the face. (lol, j/k here)
source: http://www.alternet.org/story.ht...l?
StoryID=15935
Rule One: Deception
It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."
This dichotomy requires "perpetual deception" between the rulers and the ruled, according to Drury. Robert Locke, another Strauss analyst says,"The people are told what they need to know and no more." While the elite few are capable of absorbing the absence of any moral truth, Strauss thought, the masses could not cope. If exposed to the absence of absolute truth, they would quickly fall into nihilism or anarchy, according to Drury, author of 'Leo Strauss and the American Right' (St. Martin's 1999).
Bring it on. This is a big error on their part. Even wingnuts underneath it all don't like this shit. This is America; freedom is what we're willing to fight and die for.
I'm nostalgic for the 60's. We can kick ass too. Grandmas for free speech - that's going to be my sign at the protest march. We'll make em sorry for even thinking about it.
mary - that was cosmic grappler's point, too. He advocated getting hit in the forehead because it bleeds a lot and looks really good on camera.
Jamais Vu - I'm with you, grandma. They are fools to do this - it's going to backfire badly. People, other than mouthbreathers, don't like this. If it keeps on like this there is going to be violence. It's almost inevitable that there will be a backlash.
Let's look at it realistically - even though McCarthy came close to creating the Stalinist kind of fear he wanted to create, he couldn't do it in the end. People fought back, and he was shown to be the empty husk he was. Same here - just a better armed authority. And, I might add with trepidation, a better armed populace.
Sounds like Poindexter's total information, Big Brother plan is in an acquisition phase.
I would hope that the parties involved refuse to provide the information until such time as congress does something about it.
Otherwise some democrat should threaten white evangelical christian churches with the same treatment.
That should scare'em.
MYOB'
.
Tena sez:
... even though McCarthy came close to creating the Stalinist kind of fear he wanted to create, he couldn't do it in the end. People fought back, and he was shown to be the empty husk he was.
Perhaps true, but a lot of good people got screwed in the meantime.
The response to the growing wingnuttery in Italy in the 1930's was "well, if they have their way people will quickly see how wrong they are and get rid of them". It turned out that was in fact true, but history shows that an awful lot of damage was done in the meantime.
It's fine to say that "people don't like this and there will be a backlash". It's much better to be part of starting that backlash now. People will go along much further than you'd expect with a trusted but crooked leadership, especially when many of the insidious events, like this one, go largely unreported by the media.
Don't wait. Fight early. Fight often.
The response to the growing wingnuttery in Italy in the 1930's was "well, if they have their way people will quickly see how wrong they are and get rid of them". It turned out that was in fact true, but history shows that an awful lot of damage was done in the meantime.
My big fear, IdahoEv. I describe myself as a long term optimist, but a short term pessimist. Over the long haul, truth will win out because lies are, quite simply, disfunctional.
But in order to get from here to there, lots of death and destruction can occur. I hope that Americans wake up before we have a "lesson" like that visited on Germany, Italy and Japan in the 40's.
http://www.thefire.org/index.php
Idahoev - Oh, I'm not advocating sitting around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for things to get better. I intend to be part of the backlash - I was just saying that I do believe that the rest of the country will eventually come our way, too.
I know that McCarthy ruined people's entire lives. It's one of the reasons that I have hated Nixon so bitterly from start to finish - he was one of Joe's water boys, and built his entire political career on the destruction of people's lives.
People need to pay attention to this shit right this minute. I said that upthread - if nothing gets done to stop this thing in Iowa, I'm advocating pitchforks and charter buses to head that way.
from the press release from the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG):
"The National Lawyers Guild will move to quash an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force subpoena issued on Wednesday, February 4, 2004...."
"The subpoena has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with intimidating lawful protestors and suppressing First Amendment freedom of expression and association," said Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director of the Guild. "In the 1950s our members suffered harm from disclosure of their associational relationship with the Guild. The Guild is in the business of fighting illegal government activity and we will fight to protect our membership information. We will also work to support and defend the rights of the other activists targeted by these subpoenas."
you can read the whole thing at:
http://www.commondreams.org/news...004/0206-
09.htm
and while you are at it, you might want to think about making a contribution to the NLG.
"Our Liberties We Prize, and Our Rights We Will Maintain"
The official motto of the State of Iowa.
The Second Amendment is starting to look a little more attractive and sensable these days, isn't it?
Don't go shooting at the President or VP or the like. That would be wrong and really, it wouldn't help matters any.
Howeverm, the jackbooted thungs who do their bidding are fair game if they violate their oath. You know, the bit about "protect and defend the Constitution against all enimies, foreign and domestic"
The constitution has nothing to say about God's anointed representative repressing whatever he feels like.
Reset!
Good God. The National Lawyer's Guild was the group that McCarthy smeared a lawyer with belonging to at the Army-McCarthy hearings, leading directly to the "Have you no decency, sir?" moment and McCarthy's downfall. See http://rpuchalsky.home.att.net/m...t/
mccarthy.html
Have any of the Dem candidates weighed in on this?
Argh, fascism!
holy fucking shit. . .
This is why - much to the dismay and disgust of many of my D, L, and other left-leaning friends - I keep the guns passed down from dad and father-in-law in good working order and refresh the ammo stock from time to time. Ultimately futile against the Establishment's collected firepower, but if it all goes to hell in a handbasket at least I can take a handful with me to sit around the fire...
First of all, this is hardly new-this is what anyone would expect in the re-invigoration of cointelpro via USAPATRIOT. But this, and the making of lists (via CIA computers), is exactly how a number of fascist South American states got started.
And we couldn't help noticing the Scatlian point: Congress shall make no law. Nothing about divinely-inspired presidential decrees, is there now?
I've been saying this for twenty years: If you want to know the future of the USA study Chile after 11 September, 1973.
Bread and circuses for the majority, disappear "only" a few thousand, and remind, remind, remind of the enemy within.
Piece o' cake.
Way off track. I just heard Kristof on NPR talking about buying young girls freedom and all I could think is how many boys he bought for his pleasure.
chef, take your homophobia and shove it up your ass -
I think you are the one with sex orientation issues - Why on earth is that your comment on Kristoff?
Kristof may be self-serving with his recen sex slave bit but he is not the one fantasizing about the sex live of others - you are the one doing that.
"It's the sixties all over again!"
No, it's the '50s. Rich Pulchasky, I had the exact same sense of shock reading the words "National Lawyers Guild." McCarthy attempted to browbeat Joseph Welch at one of the hearings by asking about Welch's consideration of a young lawyer named Fred Fisher who had once been a member of the National Lawyers Guild. (What ever happened to Fred Fisher, btw?) McCarthy labelled it "the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party," and tried to smear Fisher with the membership -and smear Welsh by association.
That was when Welsh defended Fisher and said, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" You can read the whole transcript
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/.../d/6444/\">here.
What in hell are they going after the NLG for?
Back to the topic at hand, these tactics should confirm the fears of even the Republicans who worry about individual rights that this administration and Ashcroft in particular are greater threats to democracy than Clinton ever was.
Talk about the New World Order - It's the same old totalitarianism wrapped in soothing words like "compassionate conservatism."
I bet Pinochet, Marcos, the House of Saud, the Arena Party, the contras, et al all think or thought of themselves as having goals of compassion in the end.
They just have to crush the opposition before comapassion can rain down like billy clubs and bullets.
No need to watch Meet the Press tomorrow....it's pretty much an hour of campaigning...
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sun...ics/
7901198.htm
honmono I meant no offence. I hope I did not offend you. Relax
The fact that they refer to the National Lawyers Guild's " alleged ties to communism in the 1950s" raises serious questions in my mind about the reporters' credibility. There is no question anymore; the NLG was Moscow-financed and -directed organization that worked to promote the interests of the USSR and the CPUSA in the United States. They were not just leftists, or even princiopled communists who did what they thought was rights. They were a branch of Stalin's foreign policy apparatus.
I've had the good fortune to meet and talk with Father Jim Laurenzo of St. Catherine's (a student's church just outside of Drake), and found him to be a fine man and a wonderful religious leader -- I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he was involved in the antiwar rally, and certainly his parishioners were.
While I'm certainly no fan of the "bring-the-troops-home" crowd and the paleo-left groups like ANSWER that organize these rallies, I'm chilled by the legal machinery brought to bear on protesters. The retrogression of liberty we are witness to is fearsome indeed.
Shaw Kanawe, I read that article several days ago. It scared the living daylights out of me.
It is a game plan for everything we're seeing right in front of our eyes -- deception and secrecy; religion as essential to impose moral law because they believe the masses would be otherwise out of control; uniting the people by an external threat, and if one doesn't exist, a threat has to be created; perpetual war.
According to the article, "They have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they are conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy."
Some of the followers of Strauss are Wolfowitz; Abram Shulsky(director of the Office of Special Plans); William Kristol and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Camone.
If you look at the adminstration's actions in the context of this article, you will see what's happening. THIS IS A MUST-READ!
Shaw Kanawe, I read that article several days ago. It scared the living daylights out of me.
It is a game plan for everything we're seeing right in front of our eyes -- deception and secrecy; religion as essential to impose moral law because they believe the masses would be otherwise out of control; uniting the people by an external threat, and if one doesn't exist, a threat has to be created; perpetual war.
According to the article, "They have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they are conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy."
Some of the followers of Strauss are Wolfowitz; Abram Shulsky(director of the Office of Special Plans); William Kristol and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Camone.
If you look at the adminstration's actions in the context of this article, you will see what's happening. THIS IS A MUST-READ!
And this NLG crowd can do good stuff ... I joined locally in law school mid-70's, and within a month was one of a small army of law student NLG members, the grunts for the civil-rights ACLU folks on a case researching 18 college-age friends' rights to stay out of jail for refusing to cooperate with just one of these kinds of subpoenas. Those defendants back then decided to contest, by way of contempt laws, the force behind subpoenas not unlike those at Drake. That crowd at my school wouldn't go before the Federal Grand Jury and rat out one-another about knowing two random and largely anonymous lefty drifters through this University town, and the only real connection between these expresso-drinking, lentil-soup-eating, college drop-out locals and the two strangers was that they mostly all ate at the same health-food restaurant and otherwise fit the profile of counter culture. Unfortunately, the two drifter-strangers turned out to be relatively famous ex-SDS types on the lam from the FBI's Big List. The refusniks knew absolutely nothing about who these two drifters were or what had happened to them after they split town after being around for only a couple of weeks, and the FBI knew it. One of those poor souls held out, and actually pulled almost two years in jail fighting the subpoena before the Feds gave up, and the local NLG chapter fought right alongside her.
Flash forward 4-5 years, and all those NLG law students in that fight were scattered all over the state, a few across the nation. I wound up back in my hometown, part of a team of local mental health workers, public defenders, women rights activists, and a large extended family, defending a child-bride housewife who had taken her last beating from her beating-man, and had done him in, one shot to the forehead from 30 feet, moving target, no-aim-quick-shot, a miracle hit. He was unarmed when she fired. For 1979-80, in rural America, Battered Womans Syndrome was cutting edge work, but this young woman and her defense Team were determined to plead self defense. She said she wasn't insane, that in the end, saving her life and the lives of her children by shooting, as terrible as it was for everyone, was the sanest thing she'd ever done. I was just a newbie, but I knew that the issue was going to require some high-level, academic-type legal research to back the claim, since it was a completely new issue in my state at the time. And while this Team had the local resources, we didn't have the brain trust and we didn't have the resources for the level of legal research called for, nor for the big experts we'd need. Two of us called and wrote that NLG crowd from law school, begging for help, not money, and they came through. Our friend and client came clear, a jury finding of straight not guilty by reason of self defense, and largely based upon a courageous decision by a local judge, persuaded by the briefs and evidence prepared and offered by those NLG students, now lawye
Sorry, got heated up and forgot the word count in my previous post. Only wanted to remind everyone of the good work NLG does, and that the people who rec'd these sub's this week are in for a tough haul. This government can hurt you.
have you no shame joe?
This is Asscroft doing his duty for the Fuhrer. Can you just imagine all the stuff that's going on we DON'T know about, with regard to surveillance, and COUNTILPRO type stuff? Oh, to be a fly on the wall in Bible John's office! Bible John must have gotten real upset over Janet Jackson's tit, and has now declared war!
This cannot be allowed to stand, any more than Bush's phony "whitewash" Iraq commission. We've got to call them on it, and be prepared to do whatever it take to fight it, starting with contacting our legislators to demand they force the FBI into public testimony on the case, in front of Congress. I want to see them argue this on on CSPAN, the fascist fuckers!
I've got my pitchfork!!
Ein Volk. Ein Staat. Ein Fuehrer.
Read Sinclair Lewis' *It Couldn't Happen Here*. It' eery how exactly it works, though it was written in the early thirties.
I believe NLG put out a 'Know Your Rights' webpage for legal immigrants to the US faced with obstructive red tape in the wake of the whole Patriot Act thing...
Coming on to this thread a little late, but I sent the following to joe, about the NLG:
don't know where you got your "information" about the Guild, but it is almost totally wrong.
One of the founding members of the NLG was Thurgood Marshall. It was the first integrated national bar association.
They fought for the rights of union organizers in the 30s, in the late 40s and 50s they founght for the rights of leftists (when even the ACLU caved in and gave lists to the FBI), they were the group that figured out how to essentially "reactivate" the old Civil Rights laws and use them in defense of the civil rights activists in the 60s, they defended antiwar protesters in the 70s, they have been active in the movements going on right now in opposition to GAT and NAFTA.
While McCarthy accused them, as do you Joe, of being agents of the CPUSA and Moscow there was never any proof offered of that, except the fact that the Guild represented communists in the fight for there civil rights. Do you have a problem with that Joe?
The problem with appeals to fascism versus any form of humanitarianism is that when it comes down to it, the average Joe/Jane looks out for themselves first. Caring for others (survival of the species) comes AFTER ones personal survival is ensured. In most cases, LONG after, if ever.
Looking at recent history, Joe/Jane can use this argument, "Fascists will use violence against me if I resist. They will beat or murder me and my family, imprison us, take all our possessions, and erase our existence. On the other hand, liberals will forgive us in the end, no matter what we do in the meantime--as long as we are only "followers" and not the high and mighty. Therefore, I everything to lose if I resist the fascists and they win, but nothing to lose if I support the fascists and they lose. I can do as the Germans did and claim I was just swept up in the moment."
That is the difficulty and why it is easy for BushCo to gather support from people who aren't die-hard psychopaths.
Garlis and lawguy, thanks.
Here's the good news, haha, about this.
I'm thinking back to the RNC in Philly in 2000. For those of you who were there, you'll remember that protestors with cell phones were arrested (sort of like Pol Pot killing people who wore glasses, of the Bolshiviks killing people with soft hands) on the day of the protest, that undercovers infiltrated everything, including the 'puppet warehouse,' which they shut down, after which they destoyed the puppets, put all the folks in a bus for hours and hours without water. And they beat the shit out of a lot of people in jail. I'm sure that Tom Ridge's appointment was payback for the good fascist work . . .
I'm raising this because the mainstream media said diddly about it. The Philly papers said the activists had 'burned cars.' Bullshit.
If this stuff gets reported, like we've been saying, no one but the maniac Jeebus-lovin' Bush-idiots are going to go for it.
I hope this no longer sounds trite:
Join the ACLU. http://www.aclu.org/
It's easy!
Now let's all hold our breath awaiting a prominent Democrat -- a candidate maybe -- to take up the cause.
I sent a reply to lawguy 1946, but hotmail ate it, and I can't paste it.
The NLG has done a lot of good in its day, but it's undeniable that it is one of those organizations that exploits good causes as much as it advances them, like ANSWER and Refuse and Resist.
Know who you're getting into bed with, even if they're on the right side of something you care about.
And it still remains the fact that contributing or supporting the NLG will get you branded a communist (never expect to fly again, just for starters) faster than just about anything short of getting a CPUSA party card. Reality has nothing to do with it. Perception is everything, a chapter from Mein Kampf that the George W Bullshit administration has learned all too well. The Federalist Society has for years been painting the NLG as a commie front organization and the GOP is all too happy to reap the fruit of those labors.
Can an enterprising AG in some blue state use the same tactics against anti-abortion protestors (who really ARE terrorists to a large extent, murdering people and burning down buildings)? Just wondering.
"Peaceably to assemble...." The question to be answered is, "was this assembly peaceable"?
As usual, there is more to the story than paranoia about government jackbooted thugs.
In the tradition of X-Men and Spider-Man, this version of The Incredible Hulk is a solid adaptation for the big screen.
====================
Brian
vermont drug rehab
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