[Peace-discuss] It is Official. The US is a Police State.

[E. Wayne Johnson]

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can't jail the Revolution. - Huey 
Newton

(It is with some sense of irony that I reflect on this from Beijing. - ewj)

It Is Official: The US Is a Police State
by Paul Craig Roberts

On September 24, Jason Ditz reported on Antiwar.com that “the FBI is 
confirming that this morning they began a number of raids against the 
homes of antiwar activists in Illinois, Minneapolis, Michigan, and North 
Carolina, claiming that they are ‘seeking evidence relating to 
activities concerning the material support of terrorism.’”

Now we know what Homeland Security (sic) secretary Janet Napolitano 
meant when she said on September 10: “The old view that ‘if we fight the 
terrorists abroad, we won’t have to fight them here’ is just that – the 
old view.” The new view, Napolitano said, is “to counter violent 
extremism right here at home.”

“Violent extremism” is one of those undefined police state terms that 
will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning’s 
FBI’s foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience, it means 
antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with “the material 
support of terrorism,” just as conservatives equated Vietnam era 
anti-war protesters with giving material support to communism.

Anti-war activist Mick Kelly whose home was raided, sees the FBI raids 
as harassment to intimidate those who organize war protests. I wonder if 
Kelly is underestimating the threat. The FBI’s own words clearly 
indicate that the federal police agency and the judges who signed the 
warrants do not regard antiwar protesters as Americans exercising their 
Constitutional rights, but as unpatriotic elements offering material 
support to terrorism.

“Material support” is another of those undefined police state terms. In 
this context the term means that Americans who fail to believe their 
government’s lies and instead protest its policies, are supporting their 
government’s declared enemies and, thus, are not exercising their civil 
liberties but committing treason.

As this initial FBI foray is a softening up move to get the public 
accustomed to the idea that the real terrorists are their fellow 
citizens here at home, Kelly will get off this time. But next time the 
FBI will find emails on his computer from a “terrorist group” set up by 
the CIA that will incriminate him. Under the practices put in place by 
the Bush and Obama regimes, and approved by corrupt federal judges, 
protesters who have been compromised by fake terrorist groups can be 
declared “enemy combatants” and sent off to Egypt, Poland, or some other 
corrupt American puppet state – Canada perhaps – to be tortured until 
confession is forthcoming that antiwar protesters and, indeed, every 
critic of the US government, are on Osama bin Laden’s payroll.

Almost every Republican and conservative and, indeed, the majority of 
Americans will fall for this, only to find, later, that it is subversive 
to complain that their Social Security was cut in the interest of the 
war against Iran or some other demonized entity, or that they couldn’t 
have a Medicare operation because the wars in Central Asia and South 
America required the money.

Americans are the most gullible people who ever existed. They tend to 
support the government instead of the Constitution, and almost every 
Republican and conservative regards civil liberty as a coddling device 
that encourages criminals and terrorists.

The US media, highly concentrated in violation of the American principle 
of a diverse and independent media, will lend its support to the witch 
hunts that will close down all protests and independent thought in the 
US over the next few years. As the Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels said, 
“think of the press as a great keyboard on which the Government can play.”

An American Police State was inevitable once Americans let “their” 
government get away with 9/11. Americans are too gullible, too 
uneducated, and too jingoistic to remain a free people. As another Nazi 
leader Herman Goering said, “ The people can always be brought to the 
bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce 
the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to 
danger.”

This is precisely what the Bush and Obama regimes have done. America, as 
people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.

September 25, 2010