Monday August 13, 2012, 5:54 am
noted

Monday August 13, 2012, 9:47 am

I think it is interesting that when the Tea Party assembled on the National Mall, the police presence was rather low, considering the high estimates of possibly 80,000 in attendance, with police reports attesting to an unconfirmed number of "many" wearing holstered hand guns. According to the police reports, none of these weapons were checked for ammunition. None in attendance stayed to clean up the use of the public space. The police were not in riot gear. Why?

In October last year, Jon Stewart held a rally at the far end of the National Mall, near the Capitol building. The police estimate of attendance was a minimum of 300,000, none were "strapped", many participated in cleaning up the public spaces after the non-political rally. The police in attendance were in riot gear. Why?

Chris Hedges Daniel Ellsberg, and 16 others were arrested in La Fayette Park in 2010, when he and 110 people held an anti-war vigil, no one was armed, no one was rowdy. Unless of course, the act of appealing to the government for an end to an unauthorized war, and the corporate scandal of Wall Street is rowdy. Chris Hedges, was also arrested while in attendance at a protest in front of Goldman Sachs, more precisely in Zuccotti Park. No one was carrying a weapon. As we all know the police were in riot gear. Why?

If by chance you do not know who Chris Hedges is; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Truthdig columnist.

We are all aware, many fully indoctrinated into high levels of fear and angst over the terrorist lurking behind every Bush. To that end, we have reinstated laws that were designed only for use during a time of declared war. No country can truly be at WAR with a terrorist. They are not delineated by skin color, religious affiliation, physical presence nor will with make themselves blatantly obvious. The FBI, and Homeland Security are tasked with finding these people that hold an open intent to directly cause harm to this country.

To attend any function of legal protest is guaranteed within the First Amendment of the Constitution, called the right of assembly. I most certainly have openly declared my personal objections to the language and obscured meanings within the NDAA. I have and will continue to participate in protests, marches, letters to all members of Congress (both houses) and to the president. I follow-up with letters to local newspapers, and weekly phone calls and more letters to those listed above. There is no justification for these laws, other than the fact that governments will use fear to gain more power and control over citizens, Americans are very easily led to state of fear and paranoia.

It's your voice, your rights - do something positive or stop complaining.

Tuesday August 14, 2012, 12:41 am
The absence of police riot gear at the Tea Party Rally, versus the police decked out in riot gear at the Jon Stewart rally is certainly very ironic, isn't it Kit? I'm pretty sure the probability of any armed Tea Party members coming unhinged would be far greater than that of any attendees at Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity. Anyone looking to restore sanity has their work cut out for them! And indeed, cleaning up the site apparently didn't occur to the Tea Party bunch, no big surprise there. Let "the help" do that. So much for "personal responsibility".

It would be interesting to see if the police appearing in full riot gear at a Tea Party, or at an NRA rally, would elicit any violence. The crowd might get riled up if they were to perceive a threat to their Second Amendment rights. Maybe at some deep level, the police know they can get by with bullying peace activists or Occupy members, and to hell with our First Amendment rights. And really, we represent a huge threat to them, albeit at a level beyond brute force.

The concept of "Terrorism" is the perfect bogeyman. People who don't understand what is going on, hypnotized by the spectacle, and struggling to survive while losing grounnd, are so easy to manipulate. They are quick to latch onto a scapegoat, especially foreigners, or anyone who is not "one of us", the in-group. The War on Terror is the perfect rationale for permanent war, with no clearly defined enemy, objective, or time frame.

The plaintiffs and We The People have everything at stake in this lawsuit, really. From the article:

"[Section 1021] of the NDAA, signed into law by Obama on Dec. 31, 2011, obliterates some of our most important constitutional protections. It authorizes the executive branch to order the military to seize U.S. citizens deemed to be terrorists or associated with terrorists. Those taken into custody by the military, which becomes under the NDAA a domestic law enforcement agency, can be denied due process and habeas corpus and held indefinitely in military facilities. Any activist or dissident, whose rights were once protected under the First Amendment, can be threatened under this law with indefinite incarceration in military prisons, including our offshore penal colonies. The very name of the law itself—the Homeland Battlefield Bill—suggests the totalitarian credo of endless war waged against enemies within “the homeland” as well as those abroad."

I myself have had great respect for Chris Hedges since I saw an interview with him about his 2002 book, "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning". As a journalist and scholar, he is in a class by himself.