James Petras and Robin Eastman Abaya in “The Rise of the Police State and the Absence of Mass Opposition” take on the tragic phenomenon of our ever-expanding police state first under Bush and now Obama, along with why so many Americans have remained, especially under Obama, so very passive about the ominous threat to all of us and/or our progeny. Read below the fold...
[Initially, I thought all the officers involved in the beating of the students against the bush were Alameda County Deputies; turns out I was wrong. See note after video.]
What a strange sensation to get up this morning and find the OccupySacramento Facebook page filled with extended arguments on the value of using precious police resources to get your ass arrested for some unfocused cause. Read below the fold...
On May 28, 2011 Television host Adam Kokesh and several other activists participating in a flash-mob were arrested at the publicly-funded Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Their crime? Silently dancing, in celebration of the first amendment's champion; a clear violation of their right to free-expression.
Andrew Kolin's new book "State Power and Democracy: Before and During the Presidency of George W. Bush" actually begins with the war for independence and continues into the Obama years. A 231-page monotone recounting of endless facts, it doesn't pick up with Bush the Lesser until page 137. Kolin chronicles a gradual slide into an imperial presidency that really got going after World War II. Along the way he chronicles the damage done to the forces of resistance, making a compelling case that our movements for peace and justice are weak in part because of the extreme repression of recent decades. Read below the fold...
This is another edition of What Digby Said but with modifications. I love her work like everyone else, but I smell a little middle class privilege here. Bottom line: if they want to, the cops will kill you, for no reason, because they can. Digby is basically saying "don't resist; your life is at stake if you do" and she's not wrong. But I had to add this comment: Read below the fold...
A secret court is seizing the assets of thousands of elderly and mentally impaired people and turning control of their lives over to the State - against the wishes of their relatives.
The draconian measures are being imposed by the little-known Court of Protection, set up two years ago to act in the interests of people suffering from Alzheimer's or other mental incapacity.
The court hears about 23,000 cases a year - always in private - involving people deemed unable to take their own decisions. Using far-reaching powers, the court has so far taken control of more than £3.2billion of assets.
So it's been bothering me for a long time now: what is it going to take? This country has tolerated the travesty that is the "Drug War" for decades; ok, I grok that as it's "only" brown and black and poor people who suffer AIDS and rape and death as a result of imprisonment. This country has also come to sleep in and miss the fact that we're bombing/shooting/raping/killing brown non-xtians in a war of choice; again, I sort of understand as that war is far away and not often on teevee, from which most people construct their 'reality.' Obama, unlike MLK, felt the need to surround himself with 000s of "security" folk in a mass grouping of fellow democracts; I guess that's a statement on how far we've (not) come since the glory days of the Civil Rights movement. But St. Paul? MN? Some of you do/have lived there; you must know how gentle and "neighborly" most of MN really is, and how infrequently it's upset by security theatre. Amy Goodman got arrested. I guess that's not surprising or worthy news to most people. But gosh, I really do wonder what it will take. Armed camps? Mass arrest of suburbanites? Shooting xtian babies and their moms?
Wake up America. Or rather, how do we wake up America? That whole logic of "I was not a [x], so I didn't speak up when they came for [x]" is starting to seem like so much more than distant memory. Is it just me? Video (one of many from the links)
LONDON -- Britain's first Muslim government minister said he was "deeply disappointed" Monday after his luggage was searched for explosives at a United States airport as he returned from official talks.
International Development Minister Shahid Malik was detained for about 40 minutes at Washington Dulles airport Sunday by the Department of Homeland Security after meeting officials from the same department to discuss terrorism.
