Is This America?
I respectfully disagree with Ben Friedman. Our liberties are by no means safe and our status as a real constitutional Republic is beyond fragile. On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division -- three to four thousand battle-hardened warriors -- to...somewhere in the United States. Their original stated mission according to Army Times was 'crowd control' and 'subduing unruly individuals.' They have lethal and nonlethal technologies and tanks. After some questions were raised -- not, I note, by anyone in the mainstream media, which has bizarrely ignored this massive subversion of 200 years of our having been protected by the 1807 Insurrection Act and by 1879's Posse Comitatus from being policed at home by military forces -- the Northcom PR people changed the stated goal of the mission to 'protecting communities affected by weapons of mass destruction.' Still, I would have thought, a story -- and so thank the hundreds of citizens who are contacting me trying to find out more. For those commentators who do not yet think our liberties are at risk, I would direct their attention to the use of military forces as a source of intimidation of voters in a closely held election that is characteristic of closing societies around the world.
Just this past two or three weeks, the White House proposed a bailout bill with little oversight initially included, and passed one that has a provision that allows the IRS to turn your tax information over to other agencies without a warrant -- forever. Again, this provision is buried so deep within the bailout bill that no media have reported the story. Last week on the website of our citizens' democracy movement we put up footage of brutal abuse of protesters at the RNC -- and the mass arrest of ordinary American students and families sitting peacefully in the sun doing nothing at all -- that only survived because the person who took the footage buried it in the ground before his arrest; police and unidentified agents confiscated the cameras and video equipment of other documenters or destroyed their digital images. And just two days ago a 24-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, who went with a group of fellow young vets to the Presidential debates to ask about why veterans' issues are not being addressed, was trampled so badly by a police officer on horseback who drove his horse into the crowd that he is still in the hospital; his young friend was at an event of mine trying to raise some money for his hospital bills.
Is this America?
And if this is not our America, whose job is it to lead us back onto the right path?
I would say that it is striking that so little of the discussion about `what is to be done' about the erosion of our liberties centers on what citizens from all walks of life can do rather than on what elites and formal national institutions can do. I would say that the crisis we face is exposing above all how severely corrupted many of our elite institutions are -- from the mainstream press, which is not covering these stories, to the parties of the candidates who are not talking about wiretapping and torture. From the raters of financial products, exposed recently in the Utne reader as having known that they were overblowing the value of the products they endorsed because they derived profit from doing so, leading to the Ponzi-scheme collapse that is destroying ordinary Americans' life savings in a heartbeat.
The real salvation is going to come from citizens and not from the top of these ossified institutions. I have argued recently that citizens have been bombarded for thirty years now with a messaging about 'fake patriotism' to lead them to accept what I call 'fake democracy', which holds a smaller and smaller space for their leadership and their rights. Citizens then must learn, as we are teaching them to in our democracy movement, to create the media themselves by writing the op-eds, leaking stories to reporters, framing the news, doing radio and television, and documenting by blogging as citizen journalists. They must run for office themselves, hold the debates themselves at a town and city-wide level, rather than leaving the discussion to Fox News or CNN; they must learn to fundraise for their own nonprofits and political campaigns, start their own political movements, and expose government abuses themselves. They must come to the realization that a false left-right divide has been whipped up by vested interests--from think tanks and nonprofits to lobbyists and corporate media--to keep citizens diverted by inflated ideological warfare rather tan forming common cause against those very vested interests that would be threatened by a truly empowered citizenry whose partnership transcend party lines on issues of concern to all.
A truism going around grassroots communities of all kinds right now is that the thinking that got us into this mess is not going to be the thinking that gets us out of it. The solutions to this crisis wont be provided by the same entrenched leaders and elite institutions that have misled and manipulated the nation's citizens for so long; they will be provided, if they are to be provided at all, by the creativity and energy of ordinary Americans themselves -- once they realize that it is pointless to wait for leadership; that the leadership they need will come from within.
Naomi Wolf is author of Give me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries' and one of the founders of MyAmericaProject.org, a transpartisan democracy movement to restore the Constitution and the rule of law.
Glad to see this post. The story about the 1st Brigade of the 3d Infantry came out a couple of weeks ago, but has been ignored by most of the mass media. I haven't seen it mentioned on TPM. Why was it brought home? Is the administration expecting riots? Terrorism?
October 28, 2008 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
On a hopefully-not-related note, the Department of Health and Human Services has declared (Sept. 23) a State of Emergency for Anthrax plus a number of other biological agents including Smallpox and Botulism.
They've also taken steps to further shield vaccine makers from lawsuits over adverse effects of vaccines. (This isn't a small issue--some researchers speculate that 1-2% of Anthrax vaccinations may yield adverse reactions.)
In addition, CDC has okayed voluntary Anthrax preparations for civilian first responders. Previously, these vaccinations were only given to military personnel serving in the Middle East and other high-risk areas.
Dr. Meryl Nass, an Anthrax vaccine researcher
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com
seems to feel that these steps were economically motivated. Emergent BioSolutions, the well-connected maker of the vaccines, has seen its share price rise from $10-17 since May. HHS and CDC people have not said that an attack is likely, just that the possibility is "not negligible."
But 4000 troops deployed in the US for crowd control in the event of a WMD attack makes one wonder what is going on.
Naiomi, are you able to find out anything about the Anthrax status of the troops?
October 29, 2008 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was presented by one of TPM’s great posters DF
DF's Blog
It Can't Happen Here
Saturday, October 04, 2008, 12:19:20 PM | DF
Presidential Directive NSPD 51:
(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;
October 28, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
A good, short briefing on the groundwork of Gulag America - noting breathtaking complicity by some of our elected officials - was posted on the San Francisco Chronicle's site earlier this year:
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency"... This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-CA, has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
If you're wondering what will be done with all the "instant miscreants" rounded up once these new terrorism grading curves are initiated, the always-reliable Pacific News Service takes a look at big detention-camp development contracts parsed out to... none other than our old friend Kellogg-Brown-Root! The story is from a couple of years ago, when the program had just begun.
October 29, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, yes, it is America. The same America in which President Washington led an army the size of the revolutionary war army to Western PA to force the hill farmers to pay their whiskey taxes which had been imposed to repay the revolutionary war debt.
Really, the Constitution has been shredded by those of wealth and power since the founding of the nation.
This really should be no surprise.
October 28, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paying the troops who fought and died to rid this country of (the British) King George is 'shredding the Constitution'?
There is a price to pay for war. After risking his own life, estate and future Washington had every right to see the whiskey brewers paid up. There were thousands of Revolutionary war veterans who risked all over the eight long years of conflict, and they deserved the meager pay due.
October 28, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obviously that is not at all what I said. The Whiskey Tax was imposed primarily to repay the $5 million French loan, 20% of which, by the way, was scarped off the the fellows who arranged the loan.
Go read about the Whiskey Rebellion and how a higher rate of tax was imposed on the smaller distillers than the larger distillers.
Additionally, it was the richer, more established coastal planters, mercantilists, and shipper who resisted the payment of the taxes imposed by the British to pay for the British troops stationed in America to protect the colonists from the French and the natives. It was kind of like read my lips, no new taxes.
And by the way, George Washington was the richest person in the American colonies at the time; and when asked to lead the revolutionary army he demanded that his expenses be paid by the confederation. Later he established on of the largest distilleries in the nation.
October 28, 2008 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Whiskey rebels got what was coming.
The force of 12,000 sent to quell the open rebellion in the newly formed nation hardly approached the number of those who fought King George over the eight year war. There were 50,000 US casualties for the Revolution, dead and wounded.
Washington had as much right to brew whiskey as anyone else if he paid the tax.
October 29, 2008 1:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I suspect John Hancock had a heavier wallet than Washington.
October 29, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, yes, it is America. The same America in which President Washington led an army the size of the revolutionary war army to Western PA to force the hill farmers to pay their whiskey taxes which had been imposed to repay the revolutionary war debt.
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That is not only a distortion, it shreds the Constitution while complaining against "shredding the Constitution". From that Constitution -- and this same policy applied, under the Founders, to Shays' rebellion, which occurred pre-Constitution:
US Con., Art. I., S. *., C. 15. [The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia* to execute [enforce] the Laws of the Union, [and] suppress Insurrections . . . .
_____
*It was not an army; it was several states' militia federalized.
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The same was done by the MA-Bay gov't, under Samuel Adams, vis-a-vis Shays'. In that instance there were pardons granted several Shaysites in exchange for two actions:
1. Swearing an oath of loyalty to the gov't; and,
2. Turning in their guns.
As for the "Continuity of Gov't" "Act": that is as "new" as, at latest, the Nixon administration.
October 29, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've read the last two books, and feel some of the fear.
There is the stated law, and there is political support. For example, in an extreme disaster, with unknown provenance, like big explosions in multiple locations, I can see the Presidential Directives being followed with no comment. But protests, or riots, would not be enough to get city police forces or national guard commanders to buy into PD 51 martial law.
The President might call for martial law, but if no one believes him, or if Congress publicly impeaches his authority, it's a tossup.
That said, it is definitely not healthy to leave these legal weapons lying around. Lathough they consist mostly of precedent and executive order, they are scary.
October 28, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amid all of the troop worship and patriotic nonsense a basic truth is generally ignored: people who wear uniforms never defend freedom. they take it away.
October 28, 2008 10:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: people who wear uniforms never defend freedom. they take it away.
Which explains why the victory of the Union forces in the Civil War left the slaves in their chains. And the American-Russian-British victory in WWII left the concentration camps full of their inmates.
October 29, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the great majority of us we can say with the ancient Chinese, "the sky is high and the king is far away."
And too, should our monarch prove incompetent or dissolute, we can elect another every four years or so.
I'm afraid the Presidential imperium* is here to stay, and Naomi's proposed rebellion (reformation?) is overly exhausting. Better to hunker down and wait for the clouds to blow over.
* ". . . the power vested by the state in a person to do what he considers to be in the best interests of the state." A.H.M. Jones
October 28, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
A bit more on the idea of the President as holder of the imperium as defined above and in the title of Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr.'s The Imperial Presidency (1973, 1989, 2004) --
Via wikipedia I'm led to a Barney Frank opinion piece in the Nation entitled "Bush's Plebiscitary Presidency". Frank defines the term as the idea "that democracy consists essentially of electing a President every four years and entrusting to that President almost all of the important decisions."
What's interesting (the piece was published August 2006) is his primary example of the exercise of Presidential power under the concept -- violation of F.I.S.A. Frank claims that this assertion of unconstitutional power was available to Bush "thanks to the acquiescence of a Republican majority in this Congress, driven in part by ideological sympathy."
And what happened when the Democrats gained the majority? The Democrats granted the telecoms immunity for violating F.I.S.A.
Whether we call it "Imperial" or "Plebiscitary" and if both political parties respond to its assertion of power in the same way (regardless of protestations to the contrary), then, a presidency that looks pretty much like a monarchy seems to be our destiny.
October 29, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am an admirer of yours Ms. Wolf and agree that something far more is going on than is generally recognized certainly in the corporate media, but even amongst people such as Mr. Friedman.
Yes, this is America but it is not the America I was born in. We no longer have a Democratic Republic and haven't since 2000 when power was seized by Bushco in broad daylight and without shame or, I should point out, opposition. The behavior of the cowardly Democrats in Congress who could have challenged the illegal installation of an imposter was one of the most disgraceful moments in our nation's history because it may well have been the end of our nation's history just as the Roman Republic ceased to exist and was never restored once Julius Ceasar became Emperor.
We now live in a banana republic very much akin to Bolivia, etc... where the wealthy oligarchs install their favored candidate should the elections yield a result that they don't like and where they spit on and trample our nation's basic law at will and where the alleged party of opposition and liberalism cowers in the corner and let's every abuse take place without ever taking any effective action to stop it or even to expose it to the general public.
The supposed intellectual class of the nation is too fat and happy to suggest "doing" anything about the theft of our government and of our national heritage of liberty and freedom. Like Mr. Friedman, they view this is simply another policy problem to discuss and think about and debate. The people must rise up and demand a full and complete restoration of our political and civil rights and liberties immediately and the repeal of any and all acts that violate the sacred rights of citizens. This should be followed by immediate and massive defunding of the war machine that serves no purpose other than the destruction of our Democracy and of life on the planet.
Revolution, not discussion, is our national heritage and the liberty and sovereignty of the people is our birthright. It has been stolen. It is time to seize what could be our last opportunity to take it back.
October 28, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
We no longer have a Democratic Republic and haven't since . . . .
1861.
Prior to the Civil War the states (originally thirteen; then, thirty-four) were independent federated polities which sent their ambassadors to a neutral site (the District of Columbia) to negotiate their several interests.
Once the states' independence was withdrawn, the federation collapsed, the central government grasped the power, and the people were left to look to a king to protect their interests against those operating in or near to the seat of power.
That with the passage of time our monarch should take on the powers of a real king should surprise none of us.
October 28, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen, this is not true. The United States of America became a Democratic Republic upon adoption of the US Constitution.
Once the Constitution was adopted the "federation" more commonly known as the confederation of the states ceased to exist. This is an indisputable fact. There were no independent states in the union after that point who sent "ambassadors" to a nuetral site. The "independence" of the states was not "withdrawn" after the Civil War. The states joined in one federal union voluntarily upon adoption of the Constitution. The federal system established the primacy of the central government over that of the states even while the power of the states to establish and maintain their own set of powers that do not conflict or rival those of the central government. The Constitution makes all of this quite explicit and it has been quite clear since then.
Once the articles of confederation were cast aside for the Constitution there was no longer any basis for a claim of "independence" by the states. Only the slave powers tried to cling to this falsity as an excuse for maintaining their ghastly source of wealth once the Constitution was adopted. Despite the reality of the Constitutional system of government, the slave powers persisted with their unlawful claims of "states rights" in order to maintain their ownership and brutal exploitation of human beings for their own personal and financial benefit. The Civil War merely settled the question once and for all because the slave powers forced it after the election of Abraham Lincoln.
October 29, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
My argument is based on practice and not upon academic definition.
Prior to Lincoln's assertion of Presidential war powers (the imperium) Presidential power was limited because most important political decisions remained with the states. At Washington, Congress acted as a concert of nations whose representatives negotiated the costs and benefits of the federation among themselves.
N.B. There's an irony in Lincoln's actions since he was a strong opponent of President Polk's manipulation of the United States into war with Mexico in 1846.
October 29, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
You simply don't know what you're talking about.
October 29, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
The system was not and is not a "federation" under the Constitution, in any sense, "practical" or otherwise. You simply don't know what you're talking about.
And your substitution of Southern pro-Confederate malarky with anti-gum'mint/We the people conspirabunk is out-and-out horseshit.
October 29, 2008 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
What you've written is simply untrue.
October 29, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid the two of you remain trapped in the historiography of the 1950s-1960s. Let me help you out.
Begin by asking yourselves how many federal laws affected the people of the United States, directly, before the date of the Civil War.
Then, ask yourselves whether a politician was arguing for the interests of these United States or for the interests of his state when he negotiated high tariffs on behalf of the manufacturers in his eastern state by funding the infrastructure investments in the western politician's state.
Finally, ask yourself who elected Senators.
October 29, 2008 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
This is preposterous. You're just flat out wrong about this on the facts. Period.
October 29, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, now, oleeb, you're sputtering.
October 29, 2008 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong again. You simply don't have the facts on your side. Not at all.
October 30, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prior to the Civil War the states (originally thirteen; then, thirty-four) were independent federated polities which sent their ambassadors to a neutral site (the District of Columbia) to negotiate their several interests.
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Conspirabunk and nonsense.
First, there were originally 14 (look it up) not 13.
Second, the states have never been the equal of the Union, so there is no right of secession -- which is where your law-illiterate idiotological lunacy is aiming.
October 29, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen says it well. I'll take it further.
While many who are elected to national office are there to truly serve the nation, too many are not. They are there for greed: either representing their own selfish greed, or the selfish greed of their local area. They feed at the trough of the magical "tax base."
Whatever happened to government *service*, government *servants*, *ministries* (humble servants) of XYZ? Whatever happened to integrity above reproach, with no skeletons in the closet?
It all went away as election to office became a highly lucrative position. If *any* business offered the benefits that the senate or house did, it would quickly go bankrupt.
Is it any surprise when regional, local, and community leaders fall into the same trap?
We truly have become no better than developing world nations.
A turning point was when I began to see attitudes here that have horrified me in visits to the developing world.
On a visit halfway around the world, I read (and later confirmed) a news report... a politician had been convicted of embezzlement and removed from office. His supporters rioted. During the riot, they torched (and killed) a bus full of school girls. The judge let them all off, saying "of course they were upset! It was understandable violence."
Last week, I saw exactly this excuse made, for people in the USA who have harmed innocents (and not with the sanction of war, etc... I'm not discussing the ethics of war right now.)
Remember: an educated scoundrel is still a scoundrel.
October 29, 2008 5:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Three or four thousand troops, no matter how battle-hardened or what weapons they have, will not break posse comitas and institute a takeover of the United States by force.
We can't even occupy a nation of 22 million with 150,000 battle-hardened troops, what makes you think a brigade is enough to take on a nation of 300 million? A brigade couldn't secure DC for an extended period of time, let alone a really big city.
I understand that Bush and Company have been a little more arrogant and up front with their crimes and misdemeanors, but they are hardly the first administration in the last 50 years to not live up to their rhetoric or to sacrifice their ethics for whatever reason.
Ultimately, however, the fault lies with the American voter.
Until we decide to turn up to the polls in record numbers for every election (most especially the primary elections) we will never have a government that performs the way it supposed to and do the most good for the most people. Ellen makes a great point about state independence being the true measure of the republic's health as laid-out in the Constitution. The federal government isn't what it was supposed to be and won't be until we have a massive shift in voter habits in this country.
I think electing a constitutional scholar and community organizer is a great way to began that transition from federal hegemony to a more perfect union of locally-focused independent states with a national strategic purpose.
October 29, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suggest you READ the US Constitution -- particularly for the constraints and LIMITS it puts on the STATES. No, the states were not independent entities, ever, under the Constitution: if one understands the process of becoming a member of the Union, then one also recognizes that there's no right of secession.
In every instance, every "liberty" is "ordered" and limited by law. The Founders/Framers were not anarchists or "Libertarians"; and, as "We the people" are the gov't, the gov't cannot be the enemy.
October 29, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
They never envisioned nor codified an unlimited federal government. That is the essential conflict at our founding. I have read the constitution plenty, though it doesn't appear as if you have.
We were always a federation of independent states, sending representatives to the federal government to ensure our national interests were in line with our regional ones. Every one of the men who wrote the constitution had a huge distrust of centralized power.
Your understanding of our founding documents needs some refreshing.
October 29, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
You could not be more wrong. There is not a single historian anywhere who would agree with your untrue claim that:
"We were always a federation of independent states, sending representatives to the federal government to ensure our national interests were in line with our regional ones."
This is so inaccurate you would receive zero points in any basic 100 level American Government course. A simple reading of any basic Am. Gov. text---even at the elementary school level would disprove your absurd claim.
October 29, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, I understand!
You've been reading those "basic Am. Govt. text(s)"!
October 29, 2008 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes Ellen, 2 + 2 = 4 and you just can't get around it. That is also in basic textbooks. In this case, the facts simply do not support what you or he are putting out there. Not in any basic text or any other reliable historical source. You're spouting nonsense.
October 30, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read to Constitution and anything written by any of the men who wrote it and it is in clear contradiction to your assertions. We are decrying what we have become through long years of inaction and inattention and contrasting that with what we were meant to be by the dudes who started the whole damn thing.
Pointing to mythical "history professors" or some us history class that agrees with you is no way to defend an argument. It is quite plain in the language of the document itself as well as the deliberations that led to its ratification that my reading of the document is much more factually accurate than your own else we would have no state identities at all after 230 years of a federal hegemony.
Supplying something more than your mistaken impression of a very simple and straight forward document is not enough to change anyone's mind.
October 31, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wolf says: “The real salvation is going to come from citizens and not from the top of these ossified institutions.”
I agree. The sooner Americans understand that positive change begins and ends with them, the more likely it is that America will change. It seems prudent to look to those familiar with the dynamics of reform:
Susan B. Anthony:
"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."
Frederick Douglass:
“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.”
“Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
October 29, 2008 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a visual;
Nancy Pelosi sitting on the sidewalk, legs ajar, stockings torn up, one shoe missing, sporting a black eye, and both hands holding her head as a cloud of stars appear above, saying to herself; "What happened?"
This is what you will see if the Democrats maintain control of both Houses of Congress and add the White House and continue on what I call the Trickle Down Government we've been getting from them since Clinton.
We've seen them vote for the war in Iraq, vote for FISA, jump on the bandwagon of the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act, kiss Greenspan's ass, keep quiet about offshore tax dodges, vote for NAFTA and forget the labor and enviornmental issues, and all in all kowtow to the scions of Wall Street and the boys in the Corporate Boardrooms as a way of holding power.
The Democratic Party has forgotten they were supposed to be the opposition party.
The political process has changed with the advent of the internet and the blogs. Democratic and Liberal blogs, with the help of a completely bankrupt conservative message, are overtaking conservative talk radio as the prime mover of the political system, and if we don't see a drastic change after Obama is elected, the visual I presented in the beginning of this post will become a reality.
If they don't drastically change things, they must be punished.
October 29, 2008 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is this new domestic military posture anything akin to the Roman Legions crossing the Rubicon?
Sounds eerily similar.
October 29, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
jason everett miller
"Three or four thousand troops, no matter how battle-hardened or what weapons they have, will not break posse comitas and institute a takeover of the United States by force."
I couldn't agree more.
But wouldn't it make for a great new Fox series. They could finally be ahead of the curve. "24" and Jack Bauer make it to Africa at last, who are they the UN?!
October 29, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
They did give us our first black president, so that was a step in the right direction.
October 29, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Ms Wolf,
I really enjoy reading your articles and they've given me a lot of food for thought. If I wasn't about to move to another state I would totally be running for office.
I thought you may enjoy some discussion of pathology and how it affects politics. There's been some murmors here and there on the net, mentioning Dick Cheney and George Bush's psychopathy, but thus far it's been very quiet.
We talk of corruption, but we don't see it as a pathological influence - which is exactly what it is. Anyway the book you might want to pick up is Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski. There's an excellent summary and discussion available here: http://tinyurl.com/2g9y4b
Keep up the good work!
The Handsome Dog :-)
October 30, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink