These are interviews with the 60,00 to 70,000 people who turned out for the big Tea Bagger March in Washington. Apparently, you don’t have to really know anything about what you’re protesting. It’s all just bad because it is Obama, and some industry or media flak like Glenn Beck told you to be mad and scared.

The Tea Bagger protests were against, well, a lot of things, including health insurance reform, the IRS, abortion, global warming, and our “socialist/communist/fascist/Nazi/Muslim ” president, Barack Obama. Some of them called for a return to McCarthyism, while others called for Glenn Beck to run for office–indeed, it seemed the only thing that everyone agreed on was Fox News.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I find it strange how these are the Americans who were in support of spending close to $700 Billion on the War in Iraq killing their civilians but they are? against providing equal government regulated universal health-care to every American citizen that is similar to those who are in the military get

And even more surreal is this that these same anti-nazi/socialism/facism villagers aren’t willing to give anyone else a voice if it dissents from their own. So let’s see, what is one of the characteristics of socialism…oh yeah, that would be the idea of forceably quelling dissent.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts

• And So Begins The End (0)
• Defining Characteristics of Facist Governments – Scary (0)
• Fox News Pundit Says McCain Has to Bash Gays to Win (0)
• GlennBeckapalooza – Showing America They’re Not Crackpots (0)
• Kite Runner, The (0)

The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, described as “one-stop shopping” for federal watchlisting, collects scraps of intelligence from all across the government, and disseminates it to other government agencies for them to build their own watch lists. TIDE is the database created after 9/11 to centralize information about known and suspected terrorists. It was based on its predecessor, known as TIPOFF, a State Department terrorism database, and is run out of the new National Counterterrorism Center.

after 9/11 to centralize information about known and suspected terrorists. It was based on its predecessor, known as TIPOFF, a State Department terrorism database, and is run out of the new National Counterterrorism Center.Unlike most other government databases, TIDE mixes records on U.S. citizens with records on aliens. And unlike its predecessor, TIDE can store biometric information such as fingerprints and DNA records.

Unclassified portions of the TIDE database are used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Screening Center as well as the Transportation Security Administration for its no-fly list and selectee list, as well as many other government agencies. Each agency decides what criteria to use to accept a name from TIDE, which sets a very low bar on what information it will accept.

And therein lies the problem. As anyone who is familiar with computers will tell you, “Garbage in, garbage out.” And so, you get delayed at the airport for hours while people around you think you’re some kind of terrorist, because somebody put bad information into a computer. I warned you.

Sunday’s Washington Post has an excellent description of the TIDE database, how it works, and how it fails.

The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control,” said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. “Where am I going to be, where is my successor going to be, five years down the road?”

TIDE has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to “horror stories” of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged.

TIDE is a vacuum cleaner for both proven and unproven information, and its managers disclaim responsibility for how other agencies use the data. “What’s the alternative?” Travers said. “I work under the assumption that we’re never going to have perfect information – fingerprints, DNA – on 6 billion people across the planet. . . . If someone actually has a better idea, I’m all ears.” – Washington Post

I have a better idea. Stop creating terrorists in the first place. Stop getting involved in other people’s business. Stop arming the terrorists. Stop funding them. Return America’s foreign policy to what it was supposed to be all along, in the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”

You may call that unrealistic, but you do so without reason. It’s unrealistic to think the U.S. can win an ill-defined “war on terror” without turning into the sort of authoritarian state that we all used to point at and decry its horrors. Look around. It’s not just around the corner anymore; the U.S. has already become that police state. It’s unrealistic to think any foreign policy other than Jefferson’s will restore the United States to the grand old republic we all were told we lived in.

Related posts

• A Big Day at Deep Something (0)
• Airport Security Follies (0)
• An Explosion of Crazy (0)
• And Away Goes the Fifth Amendment (1)
• And So Begins The End (0)

These…. people… crazy people… very, very scared people?… voted to dump the Magna Carta protections of being able to confront your accuser, and said it’s okay to lock up “suspected terrorists” FOR LIFE without trial or anyway of protestng their innocence, you know sort of like in The Man in the Iron Mask.

I mean, they’re SUSPECTED, we don’t know they were picked up and identified correctly. We’ve already heard about the innocent Canadian man, picked up at an airport, sent off to Syria where he was tortured, and then years later was returned to Canada, without so much as a “thank you for your time, sorry to have bothered you.”

Read this blog by H. Constance Gorman, a lawyer who is donating her time to represent a detainee at Guantanamo.

She has been representing a man “swept up” in Afghanistan and falsely accused by “bounty hunters” who were paid by the US for pointing out terrorists — now that’s an idea that has no chance of getting false i.d.’s, doesn’t it? Pay informants in a scary country, for sure there won’t be any mistakes made, will there?

And this man has been in Guantanamo for 5 years. His daughter was 6 months when he was taken. And of course he’s just been there, uncharged, left to rot. And he’s ill as well.

So to people like this, the Congress has said to President Bush: yes, you have our permission, go do more of this.

Don’t worry if you make some errors. We prefer that innocent people be locked up for life with no recourse, as long as we can feel safe. And so we can tell the scared people in America – we are protecting you! Because that’s the kind of America we love! Safety first, to hell with laws, they’re inconvenient, they’re for mushy liberals who don’t know the value of shock and awe. Who cares if innocent people are harmed? Not us! Not John McCain or Lindsay Graham or John Warner, our maverick moderate Republicans. They turn out to be Mickey Mouse mavericks.

AND the Congress and the Mickey Mouse mavericks have allowed the Cheney-inspired rewriting of the term “enemy combatatant” so it has been broadened beyond people “found on the battlefield,” and it now includes people who “aid and abet” the terrorists… and this open-to-interpretation phrase could probably be applied to American citizens — it doesn’t preclude that — and it is all to be determined SOLELY by President Bush. That makes me feel safe!

Not only is Bush infallible like the Popes used to be, but he is so stable. Do you notice how frayed and angry he is all the time, repeating his few sentences about why we must stay fighting in Iraq until the cows come home, or even if only Laura and the dog are the only ones who agree with him?

Such resolute sticking to his beliefs! No matter what else anyone else thinks, he will continue saying “I am right, I am right, I am right.” Whew!

Thank you, everyone who voted for him. Twice. Thank you, to those in Ohio who helped steal that particular state for Mr. Bush in the last election. Kisses to you, Mr. Blackwell, in particular. (Kenneth Blackwell was the blatantly unfair Secretary of State in Ohio at the time, and like Katherine Harris was also the head of the Bush re-election campaign. No conflict of interest there. And like Ms. Harris, impeccable in his fairness to the sanctity of the vote.)

But back to the detainee bill — who might these more broadly defined “aiders” to the enemy be?

Well, Senator Patrick Leahy in his speech on the Senate floor, speaking against the passing of this bill, gave as an example someone who maybe gave to lots of charities, and gave unknowingly to one that happened to funnel money to, say, Hamas….well, with the wording of this law, Mr. Bush could lock that person up and keep them from seeing a lawyer and just never hold a trial or even accuse them. Forever. I’m told Senator Graham said that sort of thing wouldn’t happen… but is it wise to ever put that in a law, so it’s possible?

(This broadening of the definiton of “enemy combatant” happened AFTER the compromise bill was agreed on, the rewriting came from Cheney’s office the weekend before the vote, and I’m sure Graham-McCain-Warner wanted to be good Republicans and not upset the “united Republican front” so as to hurt the election. So they capitulated. They did stop Bush from literally rewriting the Geneva Conventions. And they got any accused the right to see classified information against them … though edited, who can say how much. But they didn’t fight hard enough,they caved in without fixing this bad bill; and the President is still given ENORMOUS, crushing power by the bill. But who cares as long as we all feel “safe”? Who cares as long as it’s not us who is arrested falsely?)

Who else could be accused by Mr. Bush of “aiding and abetting” and be locked away for good without a trial? Maybe editorial writers who criticize the war? Huffington Post bloggers? Maybe… instead of paying bounty hunters for tips, neighbors could be encouraged to anonymously accuse other neighbors of aiding and abetting.

With the detainee law, the Republican Senators and Congressmen (with the help of 12 Democrats) basically said to Bush, “Here are the tools to be a dictator, go forth and …have fun with it.” It is the worst legislation ever passed in my lifetime, and I am in my late 40s.

Here is another explanation of the dangers of this bill in a cogent post by Aziz Hug on “junking checks and balances.”

As has been said before, facism does not arrive in long black coats and jackboots, but quietly it sneaks in during the night.

This detainee bill is really bad. No President, and especially not President Bush, should be given such power. To lock people up without any recourse, for as long as the War on Terror lasts, which could be forever. Are they kidding? How could they pass such a law?

Our Republican Hamlet, Senator Arlen Specter, bravely put forth an amendment that would have reinstated the Magna Carta habeaus corpus protections of being guaranteed a court hearing to proclaim one’s innocence and know what one was accused of. But it lost – 48 to 51. Then Mr. Specter, after saying the lack of such protection set the rule of law back 900 years, went ahead and voted for the whole bill anyway. Why?

I don’t understand Republicans. Even the moderates who stand up to Bush for a few moments ultimately cave in to this dangerous adminstration, and to the fear-based atmosphere that has overtaken our country. I truly fear for the soul of this country.

Call or write your representatives and demand better.

Related posts

• And , Always, Always…Wrong (0)
• And So Begins The End (0)
• Defining Characteristics of Facist Governments – Scary (0)
• I Need to Watch Boston Legal More Often (0)
• It Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Scary (3)

Directed by
James McTeigue

Genres
Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Cast
Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Rupert Graves, Roger Allam, Ben Miles, Sin?ad Cusack, Natasha Wightman, John Standing, Eddie Marsan, Clive Ashborn, Emma Field-Rayner

Lay and I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago. I’m sorry it’s taken a bit to get my review posted.

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. I see no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.”

I’ve never read the graphic novel, but I don’t think you need to read it to appreciate the movie. I saw the film last night at it’s World Premiere at the Berlin International Film festival. Though it became a little weighty in the middle (one part seemed to drag a little) other than that it was a great experience. The story was so topical that I got seriously emotional during a lot of parts. Weaving did an excellent job with the mysterious title character “V”, creating a poetic, intelligent, and compassionate yet ruthless character. Portman always seems to surprise me, except with her Star Wars character. She portrays tremendous emotional range and transforms completely throughout the movie. This is one of those movies that really sticks in your head long after you watch it though… and it continues to stir and grow.

Related posts

• Airport Security Follies (0)
• An Explosion of Crazy (0)
• And Away Goes the Fifth Amendment (1)
• And So Begins The End (0)
• Boston: Beehive of Terrorist Activity (?) (0)

You can read the complete story at the Scripps Howard News Service.

And so who is it that says, “Well, it’s okay to give up our privacy to fight terrorism. If you’re not doing anything wrong, it won’t matter to you anyway”

When are we going to demand that government get out of the private lives of its citizens?

Related posts

• Airport Security Follies (0)
• Boston’s Big Dig–Top Secret Stuff (0)
• Chertoff’s Gastric Distress (1)
• Chertoff’s Web of Terror (0)
• Defining Characteristics of Facist Governments – Scary (0)

• Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
• Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
• Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
• Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
• Rampant Sexism – The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
• Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
• Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
• Religion and Government are intertwined – Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
• Corporate Power is protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
• Labor Power is suppressed – Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
• Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
• Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
• Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
• Fraudulent Elections – Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

(Source: The Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism, Dr. Lawrence Britt, Spring 2003, Free Inquiry)

Perhaps it is unfair to characterise the Bush Presidency in these terms, because it would imply the existence of a coherent governing philosophy.

Related posts

• RAT-zinger’s Vatican in league with George…? (0)
• $1 Billion Stolen From Iraq’s Defense Ministry (0)
• 2006 Mid-Term Elections (1)
• 363 Tons of Cold Hard Cash Shipped to Iraq – No Kidding (0)
• Alito’s America A Scary Place (0)