I am almost positive it was from the Guardian’s website, but I’m not sure, but it was quite revealing, quite informative, and sadly, quite apropos of what is happening not just in our nation, but in every nation infected by Bush appointees.

Can we persuade our police and military to be on our side if we protest should martial law be declared? I doubt it.

The Nazis would have. Stalin’s dudes would have. The question is, would the neofascist Christianist crazies of the GOP with the aid of Blackwater thugs be more Brit-like, or more Hitler/Mussolini/Stalin/Torquemada-like? We shall see soon enough. I rather think that if there is an “incident” it will end up REALLY blowing up in the GOP’s (and Blackwater’s) face and they will die out under massive legal and public pressure. I HOPE that would be the case.

If I’m wrong, then ya’ll are welcome to do the Gandhi thing for a while. Give it a go. I’ll hang somewhat, observe, actually take part now and then, but I’ll not be willing to totally toss out the NON-Gandhi tactics against tyranny. I’m too military for that. Now, it wont come to that, but if it does…I’ll not tolerate ANY form of brownshirts, ANY form of de-facto tyranny and fascism here and will do whatever it takes to defeat it.

Studying up on Myanmar these past few days, I’ve learned that outside the major urban areas, the country is as close to erupting into all-out, open insurgency as it ever has been. It appears the only things keeping the rural insurgency from going over the top are the disunities among the interests in different states, and within the states.

It’s too bad we don’t have any A-Team kind of thing. Groups that would help out the monks and the people of Burma. I guess you could say Blackwater, but with a heart and fighting for good.

I hope I don’t sound flippant when I report back the extension has already occured, at least so far as protesters and silent, standing dissent is concerned.

In terms of common usage, the term is so debased that when I confronted a group of “activist” Reclaiming pagans I’ve known for some time on the fact that a teacher/hubby couple at a “Free Activist” pagan camp had:

stolen a check (and funds) from a low-income camper, “diverted” $1000 from the bare bones camp, forged signatures – and then defrauded all and sundry about it..

I was called – yep – a “terrorist”.

On a more practical level, the new AETA (Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act) defines me as committing an act of “terra” if I protest at some company that has the most tenuous connection wth animals – and someone in the company simply says they were scared.

So that’s a power corporate America won’t use?

Well – since the megacorps fund the talking shop (ALEC) that wrote AETA and stuffed it in front of our fearful Congress – I’m wrong again.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was established in 1973 by Paul M. Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation. It is a membership organisation of state legislators across the U.S. that drafts “model legislation” that is then often drafted into law.

ALEC is a conservative organisation that pushes legislation that favours big business and rollbacks environmental regulations. ALEC says that its membership exceeds 2,400 state legislators from both political parties, which is over 30 percent of all state lawmakers in America.

In 2002, two environmental groups, Defender of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council, described ALEC as “corrosive, secretive and highly influential” and a “tax-exempt screen for major U.S. corporations and trade associations that use it to influence legislative activities at the state level.”

AETA was written by ALEC precisely in order to give corporate America the power to define terrorism.

Blub – I hope my lengthy answer doesn’t seem like a dispute with you (none is intended) or your very valid concern.

I’m setting forth the above info to illustrate my belief that the “terruh” word is already used by the Bushies/megacorps in any way they wish.

Recently in the Mountain Justice Campaign – the struggle to prevent Big Coal from levelling Appalachia (and much of the water supply for the Mid-Atlantic metro areas) by filling valeys with mountains in order to roast the world with coal – a State judge threw out charges against James Johnston, a long-time Earth First! activist.

The local yokel cops and the Big Coal-owned DA charged Johsnton with “terra” for protest – the local judge tossed out the charges and the state statute, observig it was so poorly written that his whole family would be defied as tderrorits simply for being citizens.

My chief goal regarding the “terra” term and Chevron is to hurt any support for Burma (as VG points out, direct appeals to China will have far more juice).

My meta-goal for slapping “terra” on to any megacorp where it fits is to accelerate the degradation of the term., As our opponents already can define anyone as a terrorist, robbing the term of face validity seems to me to be countermeasure to the “definiton creep” which has already occured.

PS: Oh yeah – and I’ll be educating some Reclaiming pagans about what happens when you hide predators: you get lumped in with them.

“Terrorist” my ass.

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