Section 605 of the House's Patriot Act renewal bill is entitled
THE UNIFORMED DIVISION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE. The Secret Service has broad authority (included arrest powers without warrants) when it comes to protecting the President. The "uniformed division" (previously the "Executive Protective Service") handles most of the grunt work.
Talkleft has been analyzing this text and has come to the conclusion that the President can, upon passage of this bill, use his "Uniformed Divison" (aka private army) on a whim:
(11) An event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance.Section 3056(e)(1) of title 18 reads simply:
When directed by the President, the United States Secret Service is authorized to participate, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, in the planning, coordination, and implementation of security operations at special events of national significance, as determined by the President.
posted by taumeson
on Jan 25, 2006 -
135 comments
Scott McConnell is the latest conservative to realize that our populace is proto-fascist. Scott writes for The American Conservative, and his article "Hunger for Dictatorship" lets us know about some conservatives who've already reached this conclusion. The meat of the article introduces us to his old professor
Fritz Stern, an exile from Hitler's Germany who has seen fascism up close. Scott is quick to say "we're not there yet", but notes:
And yet the very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period. The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American freedoms.
posted by taumeson
on Feb 6, 2005 -
106 comments
The Reality of Red-State Fascism, by Lew Rockwell. We consistently say
"Man, we're on the road to fascism" yet people fall all over themselves to say
"We're nowhere near it.". Well, when do we say "Holy shit...we're there"? Everybody's favorite libertarian gives us a timeline of the descent, and lets us know how we are now not just on the brink, but in the midst of Americanized Fascism:
"If you follow hate-filled sites such as Free Republic, you know that the populist right in this country has been advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now. The militarism and nationalism dwarfs anything I saw at any point during the Cold War. It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state...In 1994, the central state was seen by the bourgeoisie as the main threat to the family; in 2004 it is seen as the main tool for keeping the family together and ensuring its ascendancy. In 1994, the state was seen as the enemy of education; today, the same people view the state as the means of raising standards and purging education of its left-wing influences....it sees the state as the central organizing principle of society, views public institutions as the most essential means by which all these institutions are protected and advanced, and adores the head of state as a godlike figure who knows better than anyone else what the country and world's needs"
posted by taumeson
on Jan 6, 2005 -
92 comments
Please read what Trotsky thought of fascism from his pamphlet "FASCISM -- What It Is and How To Fight It". I'm much more interested in the "What It Is".
This article from the Guerrilla News Network got me thinking about it. Trotsky does a lot of the definition
here. The foreward by George Lavan Weissman contains such gems as:
The germ of fascism is
endemic in capitalism; a crisis can raise it to epidemic proportions
unless drastic countermeasures are applied.
and from elsewhere:
In order that the social crisis may bring about the proletarian
revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive
shift of the petty bourgeois classes occurs in the direction of the
proletariat. This gives the proletariat a chance to put itself at the
head of the nation as its leader.
Oh MAN. I'm more fearful than normal about where the US is headed. And to throw some water on the flames, yes, I know that there isn't any systemic violence against the masses, but think of how the fear that's created by the administration takes the place of violence in cowing the populace.
posted by taumeson
on Apr 22, 2003 -
43 comments
Do you believe what you're told by your government? I don't. I'm quite the conspiracy theorist. One thing I do believe is that during the Vietnam war, battlefield evidence obtained by journalists directly contradicted the official word from the Pentagon. Starting with Ashcroft basically overturning the FOIA, numerous government agencies are using the Current Situation to get a stranglehold on information. Furthermore, they are getting rid of anything remotely distasteful to their administrators and beaurocrats. Most telling is the FAA's decision to remove records of past security violations from their website, basically ending public oversight of their self-policing activities.
posted by taumeson
on Oct 30, 2001 -
22 comments
Rise of the "Investor-State"? I was reading
The Nation online, and came across this article. William Greider has written a piece detailing how many conservatives in this country think that the Constitution's Fifth Amendment protections against private property being taken from individuals should apply to EVERYTHING, including government regulations. Taken to extremes, if a city want to pass an ordinance banning strip clubs from school zones, any club with even an inkling that they were going to build a club in those zones could sue the city against future POTENTIAL earnings.
Seems silly to me. What about you?
TOO LATE: IT'S ALREADY IN NAFTA. It's called Chapter 11, and it protects foreign investors/foreign companies from regulatory actions. So, for example, when California passed a bill to remove the carcinogen MTBE from gasoline in order to halt its spread into drinking water, Methanex Corporation, from Canada, sued for $970 MILLION. These lawsuits are popping up all over the place, and it's only going to get worse once the
FTAA is passed.
posted by taumeson
on Oct 10, 2001 -
7 comments
