Posted on 03/08/2016 5:37:47 AM PST by HomerBohn
McCarthyism quietly returned in January — repackaged, rebranded, and updated to fit a modern narrative — in an official policy set forth by the FBI that asks high schools to target their students.
“Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools,” an unclassified 28-page manifesto for the ostensible purpose of waging the War on Terror in U.S. schools, opens with a brief summary of what we can expect from the latest in governmental indoctrination:
“High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support of their radical ideologies, foreign fighter networks, or conducting acts of targeted violence within our borders. High schools must remain vigilant in educating their students about catalysts that drive violent extremism and the potential consequences of embracing extremist beliefs.”
Presented as ostensibly well-intentioned guidelines for identifying an individual’s burgeoning extremist ideology, the entire summation, and its accompanying website, are a thinly-veiled excuse to target Muslim-Americans.
But Muslims aren’t the only subject of this alarmingly McCarthyistic program.
While it’s no shock (anti)-abortion extremists and white supremacy extremists appear among the FBI’s “Known Violent Extremist Groups,” some other groups might be — particularly considering the keyword is “violent.” Anarchist extremists, sovereign citizens, and both animal rights and environmental extremists are deemed equivalent to the potential threat of ISIL.
“Anarchist extremists believe that society should have no government, laws, or police, and they are loosely organized, with no central leadership,” the FBI claims. “Sovereign citizens believe they are separate or ‘sovereign’ from the United States even though they live here … Sovereign citizens use their beliefs to justify fraud and other non-violent crimes.”
Despite the document’s claim the FBI “does not advocate the application of any psychological or demographic ‘profiles’ or check lists of indicators to identify students” who may become radicalized, the agency offers precisely that — a checklist of “possible warning signs” worthy of reporting. It continues,
“Using several different cell phones or private messaging apps;” “Talking about traveling to places that sound suspicious”; “Using code words or unusual language”; and even “Studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building).”
According to the FBI page on propaganda, an individual voicing “mistrust of the government,” concern about “environmental destruction,” or criticism of “corrupt western nations” would also be prognostic of future violent actions.
To envision such behaviors — in their own right — as indicative of the potential to conduct a violent attack, speaks to a problematic lack of understanding of people’s common gripes by their government. In the increasingly paranoid atmosphere of this country, fueled by Trump’s demagoguery and Hillary Clinton’s hawkishness, such broad generalizing is downright dangerous.
In fact, it is precisely this paranoia which led to the in-school arrest of Ahmed Mohamed — a 14-year old student genius whose hand-crafted clock was assumed to be a bomb. Despite his insistence the creation was never meant to be anything but a clock, he was charged with misrepresenting it as a bomb.
Sometimes a clock is just a clock, Freud might say, and therein lies the issue with the FBI’s program. As long as the United States government continues to almost indiscriminately bomb populations in the Middle East and elsewhere, those opposed to such programs will protest in earnest. This does not mean those protestations will somehow culminate in the exact sort of violence the participants stand against. The turbulence of adolescence is, indeed, a time when many students seek understanding of and from the world around them, as the FBI repeatedly notes. Adolescence is often the time of discovery, and of the revelation that what has been taught in school is anything but the entire picture — if not wholly inaccurate.
What the FBI seems to be forgetting in its return to a McCarthyistic, If You See Something Say Something crackdown on dissent, is that very criticism by the youth drives future change in policy. And if the angst of youth is given proper outlet and voice, instead of ending in violence, it might just end the continued worldwide violent attacks by the government.
Then again, maybe that’s the real problem the FBI seeks to quash.
Long past time to topple this bureaucratic Frankenstein monster.....sic 'em Donald!
Sovereign citizens in a public school is sort of an oxymoron.
Why should ANY sentient child trust a government
that allows 900 FBI files to be stolen,
and then allows the coverup of a planned Islamic
murder of a US Ambassador?
... even if it transfer weapons to al Qaeda?
Why?
I’d guess that buried down in that manifesto of “cautious precautions” are liberal code words for “The Bible” “God” “Guns” “Constitution” “States’ Rights” “Right Wing Extremists” “Sovereignists” and the like.
We’ve seen it before - we’ll see it again, over and over.
The GOPe is in full support of this. Their job becomes difficult when people get to voting age and feel it’s our right to dissent.
Once the extremists are taken care of the FBI can move on to the real threat - students who grow up to become a common voter.
Too bad this was not going on when William Ayres and Beradine Dorn were teenagers.
The Japanese solution is 1000% better:
simply don’t import tErrorists into your country and the rest of life becomes much, much simpler.
It states here clock boy was a genius. *eyeroll*
So while ISIS is killing people be the tens of thousands, the FBI is primarily worried about sovereign citizens? What a joke.
The Japanese are quite brilliant in a lot of respects.
Amen to that. See how quickly the treasonous "Patriot Act" was ready to pass and sign after the 9/11 attacks...the biggest blow to our civil liberties in my lifetime. All GOPe-approved
“McCarthyism”? As in, fighting communists in the government?
Although the document does mention “gangs” there is no specific mention of black or Hispanic extremists, but it does mention “white supremacists.” On page 18 it has a picture of a white guy wearing a Nazi uniform next to a picture of an Islamic terrorist. On page 21 they have a picture of Timothy McVeigh.
Islam is only mentioned once, and the Islamic State is also mentioned once, but there are several pictures which are of obvious Islamic terrorists.
I’d be willing to bet that the FBI collaborated with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League to produce this document. Back in 1999 the FBI released a similar document about extremists that didn’t even mention Islamic extremists at all, and concentrated mostly on “white extremists.” That was called Project Megiddo and was the result of collaboration with the SPLC and ADL.
Playing Devils Advocate here....ISIS has managed to recruit a lot of young skulls o’ mush to come to Syria from Western high schools.
Though I suspect most of their focus is blue-eyed white boys whose dads belong to the Tea Party.
It was GOP driven.
Remove the "FBI" label from the program and it will be seen as a long overdue attempt to restore civilization to schools, primarily the lower schools.
The urgent need for this is extremely "un-PC" and incendiary, but it is either that or something a lot worse.
The continuing deterioration an increasing number of some lives, of all ethnicities, colors and origin don't matter, so long as the "adults" in charge don't matter either, based on their fatal view of personal responsibility, entitlements and immunity from consequences.
“I’d be willing to bet that the FBI collaborated with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League” and the WH approved and supported Muslim Brotherhood which is directing many operations in DC.
“Too bad this was not going on when William Ayres and Beradine Dorn were teenagers.”
As you know, to very large degree, it’s the public school teachers and those who create the curriculum that indoctrinate the students, or at the very least, give approval and praise to students who adopt the ‘correct’ stance on particular issues. The FBI would do far better to keep their eyes on the so called ‘teachers’ pushing the ‘correct’ POV on their students. I have to wonder who William and Bernadine’s mentors were that encouraged them to become the monsters that they are. The Chicago area has people with deep ties to socialists going back many decades, and we now have the products of the Chicago Socialist Machine running the country. The Executive Branch, and appointees coming from there, has been taken over by communists with the strongest roots all leading back to Chicago.
The FBI is a dollar short and decades late in deciding to institute this ‘new’ surveillance program, for those students who should’ve been under intense scrutiny are now the ones in charge, creating the agenda and curriculum.
I agree.
I do believe that you're spot on...
Like the IRS, the BLM, the EPA, the COE, the DOE etc., they will be used as weapons by the regime, we can expect the focus of the "war" to be the Tea Party, the 401(c)3 Constitutional anti-tyranny activists, and last but not least, "white privilegeists."
Meanwhile, ISIL/ISIS koranimal terrorists from coast to coast continue their training camps in the woods and in many mosques...
Wonderful!
Can someone answer the question, why can SWAT teams be sent into any Christian church to investigate suspected terrorist activities, but mosques are off limits? They're both, ostensibly, "religions."
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