Posted on 01/15/2002 12:42:47 PM PST by Askel5
| AL MARTIN: AMERICAN EMPIRE THE USA PATRIOT ACT AND THE TWILIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC The USA PATRIOT Act is neither American nor is it patriotic. It is, however, a sign that the United States has out-sovieted the former Soviet Union. The American people have allowed it to happen. Public opinion polls claim that 80% of the American people are prepared to give up their civil liberties, or “whatever it takes” in the fight against “terrorism” because it’s the “patriotic” thing to do. Why? Because George Bush said so. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Gauleiter of the Beltway, has spoken about the new limitation on citizens invoking their Fifth Amendment privilege. Under this bill, the citizen’s right to invoke his privilege against self-incrimination is substantially narrowed. If the government states that the alleged commission of a crime should prove injurious to State Security, then the citizen cannot invoke Fifth Amendment privilege to remain mute. He can be compelled by “whatever means necessary,” (Ashcroft’s own words) to divulge what he may know. Furthermore, under the new national security seal, the government doesn’t even have to tell the suspect, or his counsel, or the court, what he’s being charged with. In addition, even Ashcroft has admitted that this USA PATRIOT Act has watered down (and effectively gutted) the Fourth Amendment privilege against unwarranted search and seizure. This refers to the vastly expanded power the government now has in seizing an American’s assets. For the first time, the government has the power to seize a citizen’s assets even before the citizen has been charged with a crime. That is completely unprecedented. Thus the citizen has no judicial recourse to go into court to try to get his assets back – because he hasn’t been charged with a crime yet. Then when he’s actually charged with a crime, if that crime has anything to do with “State Security” (and “State Security” is whatever the State says it is), then the State doesn’t have to tell the suspect what he’s being charged with. And the court cannot order the release -- or force the government to give the assets back. Meanwhile the Mainstream Media has said nothing. In order to remain “Pro-Government” and “Patriotic,” the Media have told the people nothing. Therefore, a news vacuum was left open, which the White House was able to exploit because the Media wasn’t informing the people. Thus the further expansion of State power continues. There has also been a weakening of the persona non grata statutes. The government now has the power to expel even an American citizen who was born here. They can do it now even without judicial review. If law enforcement, for example, feels that a person is acting in a capacity contrary to “State Security,” he or she can be deported and stripped of citizenship without judicial review. The government has also begun mixing the word “terrorist” with the word “detainee,” “suspect” and “citizen.” It’s not all “terrorist “ anymore. That’s done on purpose. They want to do it gradually, so the people don’t understand, all of a sudden, or overnight how much of their rights they’ve given up. As long as it’s a gradual process couched as “Patriotism” and “State Security,” a year from now, everyone’s going to be happy – with their new National Identity Cards. Meanwhile the administration has quietly given the go-ahead to the Oracle Corporation to compile a database of American citizens. As publicly reported before, Oracle has offered to do this for free – as a “public service” -- as long as they’re given exclusive marketing rights for what will be the most valuable database in America. Looking at the bigger picture, the American government’s unrestrained spending fits in with the new anti-terrorism act, which transfers more of the American people’s rights back to the government -- more than has ever been done before in the history of the republic. This massive increase in spending, which will benefit the top three percent of the population is just another transfer of power and wealth. All of this spending (eventually the American people will have to pay for it) lessens the people’s economic power. And it increases the power of those who rule, who govern, who control, and who constitute the backbone of the Republican Party. First, there is a massive loss of people’s rights, which have been transferred back to the government. Second, in this unrestrained spending, a huge amount of the people’s money is being transferred back to government, and therefore back to the businesses and industries, which represent the top three per cent of the nation’s wealthiest people, federal contractors and so on, who in turn are the most ardent supporters of the Republican Party. This, then, is a transfer of both control and money. With this so-called anti-terrorist legislation euphemistically named the USA PATRIOT Act, George Bush has been given the power of Caesar. The implication is that anyone who disagrees with it is “unpatriotic.” The American people have, in one fell’n swoop, given George Bush the power of Caesar – and the control of the public purse beyond the proverbial dreams of avarice. When you consider the existing power of the President, and then you add the powers of the 1995 Anti-Terrorism Act, and the further extension of those powers by the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act, George Bush and all his successors have been given dictatorial powers. Bush has also signed a bill, wherein the United States no longer has to provide a civilian trial for anyone who should stand accused of committing a terrorist act against the United States. Instead the government will now try said individuals in a “special closed military court.” In this trial, the defendants will not even be allowed to present any exculpatory evidence that the adjudicating military body should deem “contrary to the security of the State or the domestic tranquility of the people.” In fact, this executive order establishes military tribunals or kangaroo courts, which directly violate due process of law. It is, as of now, probably the most unconstitutional of all the unconstitutional laws that have been passed and incorporated into this new USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. The language doesn’t even mention the word “terrorism.” The pro-government media uses the word to maintain ratings from a naive flag-waving population. The way it is written, the bill can be interpreted that the government has the ability to prosecute any individual who disagrees with State policy. Or anyone who represents a threat to the naïvete of the American people. Anyone, then, could essentially be prosecuted under this bill. This military court, or tribunal, is not a de facto star chamber. It is the absolute raw and naked abuse of power by government. A star chamber, simply put, is any extra-legal and/or extra-constitutional body formed by government to pass judgment on the actions of private individuals. This law then could be interpreted, so that the prosecutorial power of the government could be extended essentially to anyone who disagreed with State policy. In other words, this latest authority bill constitutes another nail in the coffin of the US Constitution and further strengthens the argument that, as of now, the people of the United States have allowed their government to be a democracy in name only. The people of the United States have not only abdicated any authority over the power of their own government, but they have also abdicated their personal liberties and freedoms. With the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, we have effectively militarized law enforcement in the United States. Thus the ensuing and inevitable economic downturn and its consequences, such as an increase in civil strife and political tension that will result from this legislation, can be more easily handled by law enforcement. The stationing of National Guard internally abrogates the Posse Comitatus Act, which was enacted to prevent the use of military forces on American soil. It is being ignored and the Posse Comitatus is just a hollow shell. After the Bush Administration has passed all the legislation it wants, it will consolidate its newly found power and then the hype will begin to cool down. The first sign that the Bush Administration has absolute dictatorial authority will be when they no longer hype the situation – because they don’t have to. What the Administration is doing, in concert with pro-government media, is creating a new class of American people. This new class of American citizen does not exist on racial or religious or national origin or creed or even sexual orientation. A new class of “unpatriotic” citizen is being created in the minds of the people. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless... the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is [now] while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war, we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion." As in the last days of the Roman Empire, there is a growing fire at the Imperial Palace, i.e., the White House. But this time, it is not Nero who’s fiddling; it is the American people. AL MARTIN FOR PRAVDA.RU AL MARTIN is America’s foremost whistle-blower on government fraud and corruption. A retired US Navy Lt. Commander and former officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence, he has testified before Congress (the Kerry Committee and the Alexander Committee) regarding Iran-Contra. Al Martin is the author of “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider” (2001, National Liberty Press, 1-866-317-1390) He lives at an undisclosed location, since the criminals named in his book have been returned to national power and prominence. His column “Behind the Scenes in the Beltway” is published regularly on Al Martin Raw: Criminal Govt. Conspiracy (http://www.almartinraw.com) |
The first lie I found in the article.
This dishonest rant does a great disservice to American citizens who care about the Constitutionality and consequences of our laws.
Gerontion
Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.
Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign":
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering Judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;
By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fraulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What's not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils.
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use it for your closer contact?
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do,
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn,
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
....T.S. Elliot
(I think Aztec-ism is the logical move now. I really do. Imagine the tap routine a person could work up around an offering to Huitzilopochtli. Tapping like mad for a while, you reach in and pluck out the heart and then do the splits.......)
Sorry ... close, but no cigar.
Iroquois is the way to go.
(Combines some occultish screaming effects with a Constitution. Can't be beat. Plus, you work up a good sweat in the longhouse. Very healthful. =)
The American people have allowed it to happen.
Yep and yep.
As for your "SS", it's true The Message They're Sending is the Same Thing
Even if it takes our Useful Idiots a little more time to "get it" and enforce it in their "kindler gentler" fascion:
But I raised it in the context, and I don't want to delay all of this, but I raised it in the context -- I came back from a conference on terrorism back in 1980. I was over in, not Berlin, I was in Bonn, and I went to a conference on terrorism and I spoke there, Henry Kissinger was there, Helmut Schmidt was there, and as I came out of the hotel I saw the hotel was surrounded by APCs, armored personnel carriers. And all the soldiers or policemen had automatic weapons.I looked at that and I said, I wonder, would any American city allow VIPs to be protected by virtual tanks in the street? And it had been just after a guy named Schleier, a banker, had been assassinated, stuffed in his trunk of a Mercedes car, so there was real tension over there, and there was some real protection underway. I said no, it will never happen in the United States.
Then I said well wait a minute. What happens if the terrorists come to the United States and the bombs start going off, the killing starts here?
Would we as the American people, say protect our liberties or protect our lives? We've never had to have that debate at this point.
And so when you have an Oklahoma City bombing that's taken place, and you have others who may not be domestic but international, what will be the reaction of the American people?
Will they say the government's responsibility is to protect us, and we say absolutely, but how do we do that?
Do we do it through the local police? The National Guard? The Guard and Reserve? Or do we call upon the military in extremists to provide protection and to help with what they call consequence management?
DefenseLink -- Cohen Breakfast Meeting with Reporters in Washington, D.C. (1/11/2001)
Well, as you can see ... we tracked down the Jefferson cite and there is some question as to whether the author (an American, it seems) has mixed in tribunals with the letter of the so-called PATRIOT act.
Everyone -- even commies -- are entitled to their opinion. I agree with valis that Free Republic continues to be a most excellent venue in which to weigh any opinion against the facts.
If your opinion on or read of the PATRIOT act is substantially different than this writer's, cdwright, you might tell us why.
People are like animals they have a party group mentality.
We have used Lady Liberty as a Whore and allow the corruption by those we elected because we voted for them, we let them get away with anything as ours could do no wrong.
What pray tell is to cheer about with this administration?
BUMP
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