Comments on: How The Secret Service Turned Into the Stasi

By: earthie2

earthie2 — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:42:55 +0000

I think the worst of what you’re referring to has been repealed. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (HR 4986) repeals changes made in the 2007 bill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....amendments

By: CarolynU

CarolynU — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:32:43 +0000

Excellent post, Kirk – a bad German if ever there was.

By: xaxnar

xaxnar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:26:16 +0000

I watched the video the other night of the mayor and police spokesmen all presenting a determined story line toning down what anyone with access to the Internet could see is a full court press by the police and Feds to send a message: get out of line, even show up – and get busted.

Even then I had a pretty good idea that the mayor is not in control of his own city – the stasi have taken over. But, he’ll be the one left holding the bag.

By: greenharper

greenharper — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:43:43 +0000

If only we COULD see the “Continuity of Government” executive orders! Aren’t they still classified?

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:42:07 +0000

*standing on chair clapping*
dayam fine post kirk

By: cleanth

cleanth — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:22:27 +0000

Their greater cost is fear and intimidation; disrespect for and alienation from government as a rational enforcer of rational laws.

I am grateful to you for having expressed this rather more clearly than, perhaps, I accomplished in my recent post. Our points are of the moment and need wide discussion. This is not an advert for self ;-)

By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D.

Kirk James Murphy, M.D. — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:22:13 +0000

most of our soi disant polity is going to need “therapy” of one sort or another if we are to survive this onslaught, this obscene raid on our constitutional and supposedly lawful polity. FDFL performs a therapeutic function, but I am not sanguine that we are equal in strength to the forces arrayed against us.

cleanth, you raise a lot of good points — as I’m racing to keep up with the thread, I’ll just focus on two.

Over the near term (after the occupation leaves the Twin Cities), the NorthStar Health Collective will likely be helping to coordinate area psychotherapists and healers volunteering for “aftercare”: that will be one resource for the people in the Twin Cities.

Over the longest term, I’m quite optimistic the American people will reclaim our Republic and our representative goverment from the corporatists and their servants in office. We lived to see the first Imperial nuclear superpower collapse — faster than anyone expected.

The Empire the corporatists have forced upon us since we first occupied the Phillipines a century ago is now beyond our means. I think we’ll live to see the corporatists’ run out of power — and to see some of them spend the rest of their lives in the Hague or running and hiding in fear of that fate.

Getting there won’t be easy — but the corporatists’ lies are failing — and more of us are well-informed, while we all grow poorer and live more impoverished lives.

Community, freedom, and solidarity have more to offer than the corporatists: even now, the majority of us don’t beleive more stuff brings more happiness. If we can see through the ad men’s lies about products, we can see throught their lies about policy: and we’ve started to.

By: earlofhuntingdon

earlofhuntingdon — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:17:23 +0000

If the feds are running the show, who determines whether the claimed criminal violations are state or federal, or even local? Who pays for the detentions, the state courts’ and prosecutors’ time? Who pays for the serial appeals that ultimately will determine no violations of law, but violations of constitutionally protected civil liberties?

The costs are not purely financial. Hardly. Their greater cost is fear and intimidation; disrespect for and alienation from government as a rational enforcer of rational laws.

All of this, of course, also fits into the standard neocon theme of creating great enemies against which they define their own greatness. They are an unsure church, defining itself against the great evil of Judaism and paganism, and bound to destroy their self-created enemies.

By: Kirk James Murphy, M.D.

Kirk James Murphy, M.D. — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:09:14 +0000

The Portland Street Medics could also use our help.

Several Portland Street Medics were arrested in the sweeps yesterday (starting in Seattle in 99, medics have been deliberately singled out for arrest and targeted with chemical weapons/projectiles: by helping demonstrators stay active, we are “force extenders” or “force multipliers”).

Two more Portland Street Medics were arrested today:

09/02/2008 - 13:10
Breaking News- Medics Arrested

1:15pm-Two street medics on bikes were arrested on University Ave. and MLK by the Capitol. Charges unknown at this time. Witnesses report twelve vans, two cars, and one bike cop present. Arrests happened at approximately 1:20p.

Twin Cities Indymedia report the local popos will be holding everyone’s gear until next week (September 8). Medics - like videographers and the comms teams - need gear to help people.

Sooo…the Portland Street Medics would benefit from our help, too. What they don’t need for themselves they’ll share with the other medics: that’s how solidarity and mutual assistance works.

By: cleanth

cleanth — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:57:55 +0000

Dr. Murphy:
As you know from my comments on other threads here, I am no stranger to domestic repression. I lived in Manhattan during the Columbia riots and got my head conked by NYPD’s finest up there; I was living in Berkeley during other “heightened moments” and again was shoved around. And I am no rabble rouser, mind! {perhaps debatable to some ;-)} But this stuff in what the locals here in St. Paul call “our shining city on a hill” (where the cathedral imposingly sits, supposedly bestowing peace and benediction on the city below), this is ghastly beyond even my cynical and experienced ken. I AM aghast and in horror. I suppose that one lingering effect desired by the fascist enforcers is the instilling of fear and less self-confidence in the citizens; and less confidence in their communities qua citizens. Speaking for myself, I am well and truly traumatized, and it will endure, alas. My historical studies have persuaded me that revolutions devour their offspring. But in the face of such ruthless destruction of our polity, what effective means are going to ameliorate the situation we now face, and have faced for a long time? It is difficult to have great faith in the present American electorate, IMO.

As you, as a psychiatrist, know, I rather think, most of our soi disant polity is going to need “therapy” of one sort or another if we are to survive this onslaught, this obscene raid on our constitutional and supposedly lawful polity. FDFL performs a therapeutic function, but I am not sanguine that we are equal in strength to the forces arrayed against us.
I could wish to be proven wrong.