Catching up with the Police State
Most of my readers have an inkling of the way the American Government taps all electronic communication—phones, Internet, email, and opens letters if you still use the U.S. P. O. One acquaintance here in Taos believes that Tri-State, KCEC, the banks, and other agencies collect information via his electronic communications. I used to think he was paranoid, now I think he’s the canary in the community. Once I made fun of Ospreys, now I realize spy drones are coming to a sky near us.
Recent revelations of the IRS—enemies’ list is hardly surprising. Presidents have been using the IRS as a domestic political tool for years to undermine their opposition. Obama’s protests seem disingenuous at best. The IRS and the FBI are mandated to keep track of protesters, who would undermine not the American Way of life but the American Government.
During the last decade local, state, and federal police agencies have formed “fusion” groups to avoid laws that limit the police surveillance when it comes to dissenters. Keith McHenry and the “Food not Bombs” crew are undermining the food chains and the corporate state by nourishing the poor and underfed. Even the county commission has joined in opposing Corporate America by turning down the Family Dollar store in El Prado. Now they are suspect.
Though the National Security State with some 850,000 plus employees and contractors, who have “top secret clearance,” say they are keeping an eye on terrorists, the real targets and enemies of the state are American citizens. According to the whistle blowers, we all have an electronic file squirreled away on giant servers in Bluffdale, Utah.
The Obama A.G., Eric Holder, is going after, not The Nation, or Truthdig, or Taos Friction but the mainstream American news source, the Associated Press. The justice department wants to read reporters’ phone records and question them about aiding and abetting the public’s knowledge of foreign and domestic enemies. Damn press.
Google Chris Hedges at Trudthdig.com for commentary about WikiLeaks maven, Julian Assange, who is hiding out in the Ecuadoran embassy in London and Bradley Manning, who leaked info on American war crimes and hypocrisy. The latter, after being slightly tortured, is undergoing an inquisition behind closed doors under the aegis of the so-called code of military justice. An unprecedented number of whistle blowers and leakers have been jailed or prosecuted by the Obama administration.
There is hope but in other countries. Just as Ecuador has stood up to power in London and Washington D.C., so Guatemala is bringing dictators and progenitors of genocide to justice. As Amy Goodman notes on Democracy Now and Truthdig, “Former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt was hauled off to prison last Friday. It was a historic moment, the first time in history that a former leader of a country was tried for genocide in a national court. More than three decades after he seized power in a coup in Guatemala, unleashing a U.S.-backed campaign of slaughter against his own people, the 86-year-old stood trial, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. He was given an 80-year prison sentence. The case was inspired and pursued by three brave Guatemalan women: the judge, the attorney general and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.”
The 80s genocide in Guatemala was backed by the Reagan administration, his military advisors, and CIA operatives. Reagan could be indicted by the Guatemalan justice system in absentia, which does not bode well for the future of other alleged American war criminals like George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. Similarly, Barack Obama, the assassination boss, could be subject to indictments for war crimes, given the execution of American citizens sans due process and collateral damage—the killing of innocents—in the greater Mid-East.
It’s difficult for liberal democrats to acknowledge the truth and swallow their hopes. But we elected a wolf in sheep’s clothing and now, speaking with the advantage of hindsight and barnyard metaphors, the fox is in the henhouse. Totalitarianism is on the rise and the police state is being implemented.
Here in Taos, the FBI during the Hoover years, used to assign agents to keep an eye on alleged communist sympathizers in San Cristobal, Craig Vincent and friends as well as New Buffalo communards. One of the leaders of the famed commune then told me about a conversation with FBI agents, how they revealed to him exactly “who was sleeping with whom.” He said the agents knowledge of their doings surprised him.
I “assume” we Taosenos, who, more or less, merely fight with each other, are considered part of the lunatic fringe, hardly a threat to national security–except for Keith McHenry, who is surely a threat to the corporate state—free food? OMG. Keith was part of the opposition, the fellow travelers, who successfully lobbied the county commission to reject the Family Dollar Store. The airport expansion, Homeland Security Command Center, and Broadband project are all part of the National Security Administration aim to keep you under surveillance.
Maybe the cops can’t catch the robbers at the Coop or in Penasco but by golly they can name disagreeable citizens who protest against the government and oppose Corporate America. I mean Applebee’s failed but the Outlaw Garage survives. Eh?