Magpie

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

No future.

And I thought I was pessimistic about the state of the US. I've got nothing on Chris Floyd, who's already willing to write an obituary for the American republic:

The annus horribilis of 2007 has turned out to be a year of triumph for the Bush Faction -- the hit men who delivered the coup de grâce to the long-moribund Republic. Bush was written off as a lame duck after the Democrat's November 2006 election "triumph" (in fact, the narrowest of victories eked out despite an orgy of cheating and fixing by the losers), and the subsequent salvo of Establishment consensus from the Iraq Study Group, advocating a de-escalation of the war in Iraq. Then came a series of scandals, investigations, high-profile resignations, even the criminal conviction of a top White House official. But despite all this -- and abysmal poll ratings as well -- over the past eight months Bush and his coupsters have seen every single element of their violent tyranny confirmed, countenanced and extended.

he war which we were told the Democrats and ISG consensus would end or wind down has of course been escalated to its greatest level yet -- more troops, more airstrikes, more mercenaries, more Iraqi captives swelling the mammoth prison camps of the occupying power, more instability destroying the very fabric of Iraqi society. The patently illegal surveillance programs of the authoritarian regime have now been codified into law by the Democratic Congress, which has also let stand the evisceration of habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act, and a raft of other liberty-stripping laws, rules, regulations and executive orders. Bush's self-proclaimed arbitrary power to seize American citizens (and others) without charge and hold them indefinitely -- even kill them -- has likewise been unchallenged by the legislators. Bush has brazenly defied Congressional subpoenas -- and even arbitrarily stripped the Justice Department of the power to enforce them -- to no other reaction than a stern promise from Democratic leaders to "look further into this matter." His spokesmen -- and his "signing statements" -- now openly proclaim his utter disdain for representative government, and assert at every turn his sovereign right to "interpret" -- or ignore -- legislation as he wishes. He retains the right to "interpret" just which interrogation techniques are classified as torture and which are not, while his concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay and his secret CIA prisons -- where those "strenuous" techniques are practiced -- remain open. His increasingly brazen drive to war with Iran has already been endorsed unanimously by the Senate and overwhelmingly by the House, both of which have embraced the specious casus belli concocted by the Bush Regime. And to come full circle, Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are now praising the "military success" of the Iraq escalation -- despite the evident failure of its stated goals by every single measure, including troop deaths, civilian deaths, security, infrastructure, political cohesion and regional stability. This emerging "bipartisan consensus" on the military situation in Iraq (or rather, this utter fantasy concealing a rapidly deteriorating reality) makes it certain that the September "progress report" will be greeted as a justification for continuing the "surge" in one form or another.

It is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement, one of the greatest political feats ever. Despite Bush's standing as one of the most despised presidents in American history, despite a Congress in control of the opposition party, despite a solid majority opposed to his policies and his war, despite an Administration riddled with scandal and crime, despite the glaring rot in the nation's infrastructure and the callous abandonment of one of the nation's major cities to natural disaster and crony greed -- despite all of this, and much more that would have brought down or mortally wounded any government in a democratic country, the Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

I know I say this a lot, but ... it's really worth your time to go read the entire post.

My view of our current political situation in the US isn't quite as dark as Floyd's, but he makes a very persuasive argument about the degree of danger to democracy that Dubya, his minions, and his Democratic enablers represent. Dismissing his argument as paranoia only makes it more certain that the tombstone will soon be placed over the grave of the long democratic experiment in the US.

Via The Sideshow.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Dubya, Fascism, Iran, Iraq, Paranoia, Telling It Like It Is

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:20 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, August 30, 2007

This could be tinfoil hat stuff ...

... or it might be that the much-rumored attack on Iran may be coming up Real Soon Now.

Here's part of a post by Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment Global Affairs:

Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:
They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

Of course I cannot verify this report. But besides all the other pieces of information about this circulating, I heard last week from a former U.S. government contractor. According to this friend, someone in the Department of Defense called, asking for cost estimates for a model for reconstruction in Asia. The former contractor finally concluded that the model was intended for Iran. This anecdote is also inconclusive, but it is consistent with the depth of planning that went into the reconstruction effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Emphasis added]

You should really read the whole post, in which Rubin (a well known expert on Afghanistan and Central Asia) draws some scary comparisons between what happened in the weeks ahead of Dubya's attack on Iraq, and the stuff that's going on now.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Cheney, Dubya, Iran, Paranoia

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:26 PM | Get permalink

Friday, July 20, 2007

Are you scared yet?

Remember that executive order about "Continuity of Government" that Dubya issued back in May? The one that put the prez in charge of running the government after a massive terrorist attack or other major disaster? And which gave the prez the authority to determine just what constitutes a major disaster?

If you're like this magpie, that executive order made you a bit nervous about the future of constitutional government in the US, and just a bit suspicious about the prez's motives. And I'll bet you weren't all that reassured when 'common wisdom' said that Dubya's executive order was just a routine housekeeping measure.

Here in Oregon, some people were sufficiently worried about the executive order that they asked US representative Peter DeFazio to look into whether anything sinister was lurking in order's classified portions, which describe in detail how the executive branch would run the government after a major disaster. DeFazio asked the White House to have those classified portions delivered for viewing in a special secured room at the Capitol building — a request that he's definitely entitled to make as a member of the House's Homeland Security Committee. After initially giving the nod to DeFazio's request, something — no one knows what — changed at the White House, and permission to see the classified documents was withdrawn.

A good case could be made that the White House's refusal of DeFazio's request is just another example of the Dubya/Cheney regime's penchant for secrecy. Or maybe it's just another case of the prez giving Congress the finger. But maybe the reason that the White House doesn't want these documents to be seen by anyone outside the prez's immediate circle is that there is something sinister hidden in Dubya's executive order.

Indulge this magpie's paranoia for a moment and consider: Dubya's domestic political problems continue to get worse and his popularity is showing signs of dropping below Nixonian levels. The Iraq occupation is not going well. Congress is beginning to shine some light on the dark and illegal deeds that have taken place under Dubya and Cheney's watch. Almost half the country supports the impeachment of Dubya, and even more support impeaching Cheney.

In the midst of this political environment, consider the timing of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff's recent 'gut feeling' that the US is in danger of a terrorist attack this summer. And, finally, reconsider the fact that the White House doesn't want a member of Congress to see documents that explain how a president — Dubya, for example — will run the goverment in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Taking all of that into account, don't the phrases 'suspending the constitution' and 'executive coup d'etat' sound less like stuff that belongs only in the ramblings of paranoid conspiracy theorists and a bit more like possibilities that we all should be concerned about?

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Dubya, Fascism, Paranoia, Politics, Presidency, White House

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:54 PM | Get permalink

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Fascism in the US?

No problem, says Naomi Wolf. Just follow these steps.

What? You say that someone's already done all 10 steps?

Via UK Guardian.

Labels: Dubya, Fascism, Paranoia

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:56 PM | Get permalink

Monday, April 23, 2007

Another threat to the nation is turned back at the border.

Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar is a really dangerous guy. He had the nerve to write about his experiences with psychedelic drugs and suggest that, under some circumstances and with some patients, those drugs might be more effective in dealing with psychological problems than standard psychotherapy. Despite the fact that Feldmar's experiences with psychedelics took place decades ago -- many of them before the drugs were illegal in the US or Canada -- and despite the fact that he wrote in a scientific journal, Feldmar was turned back at the border the last time he tried to cross from Canada and has been permanently barred from entering the US.

Sadly, this kind of story is nothing new. As this article points out, the US has a history of keeping out people it doesn't like politically. Since 9/11, however, Dubya's administration has been excluding foreigners from the US with distressing regularity:

Pop singer Cat Stevens was turned back from the U.S. in 2004, after being detained. Bolivian human rights leader and lawyer, Leonida Zurita Vargas was prevented from entering in February of 2006. She was planning to be in the U.S. as part of a three week speaking tour on Bolivian social movements and human rights.... [She] never got beyond the airport check-in at Santa Cruz, Bolivia where she was informed her ten-year visa had been revoked because of alleged links to terrorist activity.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied Professor John Milios entry into the country upon his arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport last June. Milios, a faculty member at the National Technical University of Athens, had planned to present a paper at a conference titled "How Class Works" at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Milios told Academe Online that U.S. officials questioned him at the airport about his political ideas and affiliations and that the American consul in Athens later queried him about the same subjects. Milios, a member of a left-wing political party, is active in Greek national politics and has twice been a candidate for the Greek parliament. Milios's visa, issued in 1996, was set to expire in November. The professor had previously been allowed entry into the United States on five separate occasions to participate in academic meetings.

The American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and PEN American Center, filed a lawsuit this year challenging a provision of the Patriot Act that is being used to deny visas to foreign scholars. They did this after Professor Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss intellectual, had his visa revoked under "the ideological exclusion provision" of the Patriot Act, preventing him from assuming a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame. It's a suit that attempts to prevent the practice of ideological exclusion more generally, a practice that led to the recent exclusions of Dora Maria Tellez, a Nicaraguan scholar who had been offered a position at Harvard University, as well as numerous scholars from Cuba.

In March 2005, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about the government's use of the Patriot Act ideological exclusion provision. Cuban Grammy nominee Ibrahim Ferrer, 77, who came to fame in the 1999 film Buena Vista Social Club, was blocked by the U.S. government from attending the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for the Best Latin album award in 2004. So were his fellow musicians Guillermo Rubalcaba, Amadito Valdes, Barbarito Torres and the group Septeto Nacional with Ignacio Pineiro. The list goes on.

What's more dangerous to freedom than these exclusions themselves, I'd suggest, is the apparatus that has to be set up to identify such people at the border. The feds need to collect information from all over the place, consolidate it into databases that can be easily used by border officials, and make sure that there are more people at the borders identifying 'undesirables.' As one person mentioned in the Tyee article about Feldmar suggests, the tools for an authoritarian state have been put into place in the US. The fact that they haven't been used yet on most of us doesn't mean that they won't be.

Via The Tyee.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', Canada, Paranoia, Surveillance, War on Drugs

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:49 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Too much is not enough.

Not for Dubya's administration.

Concerned that the feds don't have enough powers to spy on people, the prez's director of national intelligence is asking for even more.

Via AP.

Labels: 'War on Terrorism', FISA, Paranoia, Spying

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:36 PM | Get permalink