Constitutional rights are so overrated.

"One ... has to wonder how an American traveler in Europe would react if he were denied boarding on a flight from London to Rome because the German government had not received sufficient data from him."

So says a tour operator speaking out against the latest America-as-meddlesome-world-cop nonsense. If you're leaving a British airport to go to Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean, Fatherland Security now requires your full name, date of birth, and sex from your airline -- even if your plane never crosses U.S. airspace. You can't find out till you get to the airport whether the American government has allowed you to board your plane or not. The sad part is that the airlines are going right along with it and not fighting back.

But then most people don't seem to bother fighting back anymore. (Should we even be surprised at that, when most people are so apathetic that they can't even name the current chief justice of the Supreme Court?) It's notable that there was a public outcry over SOPA and PIPA, with even corporations fighting against the Internet censorship they'd bring. But now a bill infinitely worse than either SOPA or PIPA has passed the House with barely a whisper from the media or the public -- and Facebook, Boeing, Verizon, and a host of other corporations actually support CISPA. Perhaps it's because CISPA offers the illusion of cyber-security without threatening intellectual property. In other words, it doesn't have the potential to gore the corporate ox. What's more, the only thing corporations would ever have to do is turn over your private information to the government if some fed is concerned that you're being bad on the Internet -- and they're shielded from any kind of liability that may come from sharing that information. So it's no skin off their noses.

Bottom line: If you are deemed a "cyber threat," which could mean just about anything, your privacy on the Web is gone. CISPA also grants the government complete immunity from all privacy protections, and the program would even be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. So if you're under government scrutiny by way of CISPA and you want to know why, too bad.

As TechDirt's Leigh Beadon says, "Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all."

Software-freedom activist Richard Stallman agrees:

"What CISPA says as passed by the House of Representatives is any ISP, any website, any company that has some of your data in it can voluntarily hand it over to the government for a wide range of reasons," and it's up to the government to interpret it however they see fit, the father of the free software philosophy explained.

"So if they see the slightest bit that they think is odd in your email, they can hand it over to the government. And if the government says it has something to do with national security -- it is very easy to say that, whether it’s true or not -- then the government can study it for any purpose. This nearly abolishes people's right not to be unreasonably searched." 

Let's review Amendment Four, for those playing along at home:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

Barky O'Bomber claims he'll veto the bill -- not because he thinks it's a bad bill, but because it doesn't go far enough. How's that hope and change working out for you?

If by some miracle CISPA doesn't pass, there are plenty more cybersecurity bills waiting their turn in Congress. Why is the government so desperate to throttle the Internet? Because the government saw how the recent revolutions abroad were spurred by the power of social media, and how the Occupiers here at home used the power of the Web with the same organizing spirit in mind. Naomi Wolf relates:

As one Internet advocate said to me: "There is a race against time: they realize the Internet is a tool of empowerment that will work against their interests, and they need to race to turn it into a tool of control." 

So, what other parts of the Constitution are under assault? Well, the First Amendment is taking a hit from a couple of fronts. Down in North Carolina, a blogger who's advocating a diet for fellow diabetics is being threatened with prosecution and jail time, essentially because he's pushing the diet without the consent of the state's "board of dietetics." Meanwhile, in Virginia, an anarchist who used the Freedom of Information Act found that a training guide for Richmond cops shows just to what extent the police are being militarized and how far they're willing to go in shutting down protest. This one line speaks volumes:

Current training and intelligence reveals that protestors are becoming more proficient in the methods of assembly.

Think about that for a minute. Richmond cops are being warned that protestors are getting better at assembly. Let's take a peek at the Amendment One, shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The right to assemble, guaranteed to us in the Constitution, is being couched in negative terms by our own law-enforcement agents.

And don't even think about trying to go undercover to show the world the abuses taking place in factory farms and animal-research centers. The meat and dairy industry, along with other big agribusiness and pharma interests, are getting the identical bill introduced in several states around the country to criminalize undercover recording, thereby making sure that what goes on behind the scenes in labs and on factory farms never sees the light of day. 

Well, how about the right to privacy? you ask. Does the madness stop at CISPA?

Nope.

The Senate has already passed a bill that would make recording devices mandatory in all vehicles beginning in 2015. The government will be able to track your whereabouts whenever it wants, and for any reason. As if that wasn't bad enough, the bill also gives the IRS the right to seize your passport if you're delinquent on your taxes.

How about parents' rights to raise their children as they see fit? 

Not if New York has its way: A bill there would essentially make children legal adults when it came to consenting to vaccines. So if parents have a health or religious objection to vaccinations, all a doctor would need to do is ask the child directly if he or she wants a shot. Kid says yes, and the parents have no more say.

OK, but we still have the right to vote, don't we, so we can get these people out of office? 

Well, sure, if you vote for the right guy. But if you like Ron Paul, places like Wyoming will result to any dirty tricks necessary to keep him from winning votes and delegates. Or if you live in the Seattle area, the GOP machine will come up with cockamamie excuses for why Ron Paul supporters can't even run a caucus meeting.

Sigh. But we have people on the lookout for nefarious behavior like this, and surely they'll speak up when they see abuses of power. 

They might, but the current administration is cracking down on government whistleblowers with a zeal that even the Bush regime didn't attempt. People are facing prosecution for things as varied as opposing waterboarding and calling out wrongdoing at the NSA. You don't go along with what Obama wants? Then he'll go after you under the auspices of an antiquated World War I-era law that was intended to deal with spies, not citizens keeping a watchful eye on their own government.

Er ... rule of law, maybe?

Well, there's that pesky problem with the border-patrol agents who beat a man to death. And then there's Obama's insistence on keeping a Yemeni journalist in prison -- which kind of gets back to the assault on whistleblowers. Salon recently wrote about Jeremy Scahill, a reporter for The Nation, and lauded the work he's doing, especially since the mainstream corporate media conveniently ignores the real stories:

In July of last year, he returned from Mogadishu and documented the Obama administration’s maintenance and proxy operation of secret CIA-run prisons in Somalia of the type that caused so much controversy during the Bush administration and which Obama supporters like to claim the President ended, and last month he returned from tribal regions in Yemen and detailed how U.S. civilian-killing drone strikes (along with its support for Yemeni despots) are the single most important cause fueling Al Qaeda's growth in that country.

Blowback, anyone?

Here's what Salon had to say about one of Scahill's more recent investigations:

As we now know, on December 17, 2009, President Obama ordered an air attack -- using Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs -- on the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province; the strike ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children. At the time, the Yemeni government outright lied about the attack, falsely claiming that it was Yemen's air force which was responsible.

[...]

There is one reason that the world knows the truth about what really happened in al Majala that day: because the Yemeni journalist, Abdulelah Haider Shaye, traveled there.

[...]

Despite that important journalism -- or, more accurately, because of it -- Shaye is now in prison, thanks largely to President Obama himself. For the past two years, Shaye has been arrested, beaten, and held in solitary confinement by the security forces of [former Yemeni President] Saleh, America's obedient tyrant. In January 2011, he was convicted in a Yemeni court of terrorism-related charges -- alleging that he was not a reporter covering Al Qaeda but a mouthpiece for it -- in a proceeding widely condemned by human rights groups around the world. "There are strong indications that the charges against [Shaye] are trumped up and that he has been jailed solely for daring to speak out about U.S. collaboration in a cluster munitions attack which took place in Yemen," Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, told Scahill.

[...]

Shaye's real crime is that he reported facts that the U.S. government and its Yemeni client regime wanted suppressed. But while the imprisonment of this journalist was ignored in the U.S, it became a significant controversy in Yemen. Numerous Yemeni tribal leaders, sheiks and activist groups agitated for his release, and in response, President Saleh, as the Yemeni press reported, had a pardon drawn up for him and was ready to sign it. That came to a halt when President Obama intervened. According to the White House’s own summary of Obama’s February 3, 2011, call with Saleh, "President Obama expressed concern over the release of Abd-Ilah al-Shai." The administration has repeatedly refused to present any evidence that Shaye is anything other than a reporter.

[...]

So it is beyond dispute that the moving force behind the ongoing imprisonment of this Yemeni journalist is President Obama. And the fact that Shaye is in prison, rather than able to report, is of particular significance (and value to the U.S.) in light of the still escalating American attacks in that country. 

In short: Expose the Obama administration's reign of terror overseas, and you get to rot in prison.

It's amazing our own reporters can say anything without repercussion -- but then, most of them are mouthpieces for their corporate masters who wouldn't say anything challenging anyway. At least David Rohde had the gall to set the record straight on our Nobel Peace Prize Winner-in-Chief:

Obama has embraced the CIA, expanded its powers and approved more targeted killings than any modern president. Over the last three years, the Obama administration has carried out at least 239 covert drone strikes, more than five times the 44 approved under George W. Bush.

OK, I give up. What can we do about any of this?

Well, since the Supreme Court ruled that you can be strip-searched over the most minor offense once you're arrested -- and since you can now be arrested for no reason whatsoever -- you can always beat the feds to the punch and show up for your TSA groping naked.

Or you can be happy that those mandatory spending cuts will be enacted since the Republicrats and Demopublicans couldn't agree on spending limits last year. Maybe more things like the Pentagon's "pain ray" won't be developed on the taxpayer's dime. That one was abandoned after flushing $120 million down the toilet. As one of our military geniuses put it: "You want to win the hearts and minds. ... You don’t want to kill the people that you’re trying to protect."

Gee, ya think? Not that blasting people with pain-inducing microwaves is going to win "hearts and minds," but it might at least disperse some of those crowds trying to exercise their Constitutional right to peaceful assembly.

After all, why let the Constitution get in the way of a government that has to protect us all to death? Freedom is too dangerous; we have to stop the Bad Guys Out There. And sometimes, apparently, you just have to destroy a nation in order to save it.

No wonder this guy added the caveat "if you can keep it" when asked what kind of government the Founding Fathers had given us:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, who most assuredly would never have let some TSA goon touch his junk.

Papa Paul vs. Big Brother

All over the country, it keeps happening. Over and over. Republican Party operatives are pulling every trick out of the book to block Ron Paul from winning votes and delegates. In Washington, they're trying to unify delegates for Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich in an attempt to block Paul supporters. In North Dakota, the party operatives shoved through a pre-selected slate of delegates for Romney, even though Romney polled third in North Dakota. Paul finished second behind Santorum. (We saw the same kind of dirty tricks in Georgia earlier in the election cycle.) This comes after the rigged selection process in Missouri, and the debacle in Maine, where entire towns where Paul support was strong were recorded as casting zero votes. Problems have been reported in Alaska, Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, and Virginia. Of course, this has been going on from the beginning of the election season, starting in Iowa.

Yet all the mainstream media does is report that Ron Paul lost yet another election, and why doesn't he just drop out and go away? 

In fact, the MSM asks, just where has Ron Paul gone? On the same day Fox News asked that question, he was speaking to a capacity crowd of at least 6,000 people at UCLA. When all the seats were gone, people climbed into the trees to see him. He drew an even bigger crowd at Berkeley.

Did you see that on your local news? Of course not, just like you don't hear any reports in the mainstream media about the constant, relentless voter fraud that continues to go on, state after state. And this isn't even something new. Hillary Clinton supposedly ran into the same kind of stonewalling tactics from her party in 2008, so it's not even as if this is something limited to one party.

Michele Thomas, a professional photographer in Hollywood, told WND in an exclusive interview that her resistance to the Obama campaign made her a target of intimidation.

"I have received death threats from Obama's people," she said. "I think I was called a 'racist' a thousand times. If you didn’t stand for Obama, you were a racist. It was a way to intimidate you."

[...]

Thomas started out as a volunteer for Hillary in Los Angeles, making thousands of phone calls from the local campaign office.

What she witnessed while volunteering for Hillary in the Nevada Democratic Party caucuses eventually turned her into an activist.

"The Obama campaign people were stealing the caucuses -- throwing away votes, intimidating people from entering the caucus locations," she said. "It was very systematic. The Obama supporters got control over the caucus packages and they manipulated the vote."

She said she was astounded that the media was not interested in covering the alleged abuses.

"Everyone knew the Obama people were stealing the election," she charged.

Where is the media? Reporting only what their corporate masters tell them to report, one can only assume.

Well, if Paul can't win because the elections are rigged, at least he has the satisfaction of knowing that he's earned the support of five of Romney's relatives.

It's just sad that it's come to this in America. And the biggest travesty isn't that fair elections are being undermined -- it's that Ron Paul is the only guy who stands a chance of beating Obama. Let's face it -- Romney and Gingrich would get the GOP establishment vote, and Santorum would win over the religious zealots. Paul is the only candidate who could reach beyond the GOP and attract both independent voters and disaffected Democrats. If anyone else wins the nomination besides Paul, Obama will win. And it wouldn't matter anyway, since they're pretty much the same person. Hell, Romney even said he would have supported the detention of Americans as written into the 2011 NDAA bill. That would be the same bill Obama once threatened to veto -- if the detention provision had been taken out -- and signed on New Year's Eve, when no one was watching.

Of course, even when people are watching, Barky doesn't seem to care much whether he displays an arrogant contempt for the law and our system of government. When the debate over the Obamacare mandate finally reached the Supreme Court, and the questioning from the justices suggested some deep concerns, Obama's response was to warn the court not to make an "activist" decision: 

I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. ... And I'd just remind conservative commentators that for years what we've heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.

Are you freaking kidding me? This guy used to teach constitutional law? There is nothing "unprecedented" in having the Supreme Court overturn a law -- that's what the court does, and that's what it's been doing for 200 years. The law also was not passed by a "strong majority"; it was a 2,700-page bill that was never read and barely squeaked by, on a second vote, cast literally in the middle of the night, after Obama cashed in just about every political favor he owed to get it done. And as for the court being unelected -- that's kind of the point. They're appointed so that they won't be influenced by the voting process. Unlike smarmy politicians, they're supposed to be impartial and not beholden to anyone. Their job is to interpret and uphold the Constitution. And if they can't determine that the Commerce Clause was never intended as a means to force people to purchase a product from a private company, all hope is lost, and Barky will get his wish of a fully activist court. Because once the government can order you to buy one product, there's literally nothing stopping them from ordering you to purchase anything else. U.S. automakers in the doldrums? Hey, no problem -- we hereby order all Americans to purchase a new car at least once every five years. Sound ludicrous? If the Obamacare mandate is upheld, there is nothing stopping the government from doing something exactly like that.

Of course, we're dealing with a Supreme Court that just said it's fine to conduct strip searches on people who've been arrested for something as innocuous as an unpaid parking ticket, and that ruled that it's OK for government witnesses to lie to grand juries. So forgive me if I don't have a lot of faith in a positive outcome here.

Some critics have called Obama's words against the Supreme Court an act of intimidation. Wouldn't surprise me if he was openly threatening the justices, considering he and his people apparently have a knack for delivering threats. If one Hollywood producer is to be believed, people ended up dead -- and Chelsea Clinton's life may have even been threatened -- when the Clintons were poised to blow the whistle on Obama's lack of qualification for office.

Oh, you thought some right-wing cranks came up with the birth-certificate issue? Nope. And it took the independent press to examine the birth certificate that was finally released and find that it was most likely a forgery. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something fishy was going on when, after spending years and millions of taxpayer dollars fighting the birth-certificate issue, Obama suddenly releases it -- and then three days later wags the dog by announcing that Osama bin Laden had been captured and killed by U.S. forces. How does this guy have any credibility left?

And if you thought it wasn't bad enough that he's approved detention of U.S. citizens, the takeover of any sector of the economy for "national defense," and the end of peaceful assembly, now he's likely to see a bill that would let the government monitor any part of the Internet for essentially any reason. 

H.R. 3523, a piece of legislation dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA for short), has been created under the guise of being a necessary implement in America's war against cyberattacks. But the vague verbiage contained within the pages of the paper could allow Congress to circumvent existing exemptions to online privacy laws and essentially monitor, censor, and stop any online communication that it considers disruptive to the government or private parties. Critics have already come after CISPA for the capabilities that it will give to seemingly any federal entity that claims it is threatened by online interactions, but unlike the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Protect IP Acts that were discarded on the Capitol Building floor after incredibly successful online campaigns to crush them, widespread recognition of what the latest would-be law will do has yet to surface to the same degree.

Kendall Burman of the Center for Democracy and Technology tells RT that Congress is currently considering a number of cybersecurity bills that could eventually be voted into law, but for the group that largely advocates an open Internet, she warns that provisions within CISPA are reason to worry over what the realities could be if it ends up on the desk of President Barack Obama. So far CISPA has been introduced, referred and reported by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and expects to go before a vote in the first half of Congress within the coming weeks.

"We have a number of concerns with something like this bill that creates a sort of vast hole in the privacy law to allow government to receive these kinds of information,: explains Burman, who acknowledges that the bill, as written, allows the US government to involve itself into any online correspondence, current exemptions notwithstanding, if it believes there is reason to suspect cyber crime. As with other authoritarian attempts at censorship that have come through Congress in recent times, of course, the wording within the CISPA allows for the government to interpret the law in such a number of degrees that any online communication or interaction could be suspect and thus unknowingly monitored.

Note that one crucial line: "Congress is currently considering a number of cybersecurity bills that could eventually be voted into law." So even if this one doesn't make it, there will be another. As it is, you'd better not get into an online argument with someone in Michigan, because Facebook posts that are considered threatening or harassing can now land you in prison. In Arizona, doing so much as annoying someone online could land you behind bars for a quarter-century if a new bill passes there.

Meanwhile, the government is probably monitoring what you say online already, so who even needs to sit around and worry about what Congress does, when the feds just go ahead and do whatever they want without the pesky process of getting a law passed?

One way or another -- whether it's from online snoops or spy drones flying overhead -- Big Brother is watching you.

You get what you deserve

It's been a brutal week and a half, in more ways than one.

On St. Patrick's Day weekend, the New York Occupiers retook their Liberty Square to commemorate six months of the Occupy movement -- and predictably, the police swarmed in on them with vicious brutality. A video on the Occupy site shows the cops ramming a man's head into a glass door and cracking the glass. Another woman suffered a seizure, and the cops looked on and did nothing after tackling her and dragging her by the head to a holding area. (This is the same woman who, in an Occupy scuffle last year with the police, was called a "bitch cunt" by an officer of the law after he pepper-sprayed her, knocked her down, stepped on her head, and told her, "You get what you deserve.") In the aftermath, five members of the City Council decried the brutality, and activists are calling for the resignation of the police commissioner.

In passing, the Occupy site mentions that the media were not allowed to cover the events. Whose idea was it to nullify the First Amendment right to freedom of the press, and why would the media comply? Of course, it's obvious why the cops don't want any press coverage, given how they're moving in with their riot gear and arsenal of weapons, looking like military squadrons, and cracking down hard on even peaceful Occupy protests. No wonder so many cops around the country are trying to intimidate people into not videotaping them in action, sometimes claiming that recording them somehow violates wiretap laws. When you're a desperate thug, you'll apparently do anything not to get caught on camera. It's OK if the government constantly has cameras turned on you, of course. That's perfectly fine.

And naturally, they have to keep tabs on all of us, because doing so much as breaking out in goosebumps might mean you're a terrorist. That's what the New Jersey Office of Fatherland, er, Homeland Security says in a new release aimed at helping residents spot Bad Guys. Other signs you might be ready to blow up a building? Yawning, sweating, and fidgeting. Both pacing around and standing rigidly still should set off alarm bells, too. So basically, any action you might take, consciously or otherwise, in public can now mark you as a terrorist threat. This news, of course, follows earlier FBI guidelines telling merchants to watch out for people who pay with cash. If you're missing limbs, have more than seven days of food stored up, quote the Constitution, or support Ron Paul, you might be a terrorist, too.

Yeah, you know Ron Paul, right? The guy who has massive grassroots support but whose message is constantly blacked out by the media, and whose voters are disenfranchised in caucuses and primaries around the country by big-government neocons who are terrified of being exposed as the frauds they are. All you hear in the media is how also-ran Ron Paul lost again, if he's mentioned at all. Those of us paying attention hear instead the chilling words of Joseph Stalin: "I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this -- who will count the votes, and how."

The system is so corrupt that it's not even worth voting -- and most Americans are too lazy or stupid to care.



American expat blogger Fred Reed sees the rampant corruption and likens America to a Third World country, where bribery and graft are ubiquitous. But at least in those places, people are aware of it. In America, it takes place in a formalized setting, characterizing the relationship between corporations and government, among other things:

In the United States, corruption occurs at the level of policy and contracts, between corporations, special interests, and Congress. It is done gracefully and usually legally. For example, Big Pharma pays Congress to insert, in some voluminous bill that almost no one will read, a clause saying that the government will pay list price for drugs instead of negotiating for a better price. Over time, this is worth hundreds of millions, paid by you. Yet the clause is legal. Or military industry pays Congress to buy an enormously expensive and unneeded airplane. It's legal. Read the bill. Or agribusiness pays Congress to cough up large subsidies. Also legal.

But it's not limited to corporate/political back-scratching:

Large groups -- blacks, women, Indians, unions -- bribe or intimidate Congress into giving them special privilege: affirmative action, racial and gender set-asides, casinos, loans and preferences from the Small Business Administration according to sex and ethnicity. Corruption, plain and simple. But legal.

And why is it all happening?

In America, the Constitution is largely and increasingly ignored by the government. Constitutionally the three branches of government are co-equal, but in practice the Supreme Court is of little consequence and Congress is the action arm of a corporate oligarchy. Constitutionally Congress must declare war, but now the president sends combat troops wherever he pleases and Congress reads about it in the Washington Post. The president can order citizens murdered, ignore habeas corpus, monitor and store email. The government can search you at will with no pretense of probable cause. Third World.

Yet the one guy in the presidential race who wants to restore America to its limited-government constitutional principles is by turns ignored, denied votes, and labeled unelectable, too extreme, a fringe nutcase.

And Americans are too busy watching American Idol to care. No one cared when NDAA gave Obama the right to detain American citizens indefinitely without charges. No one cared when he signed HR 347 and essentially outlawed peaceful assembly. No one cares that he's allowed spy agencies to retain collected information on American citizens, without oversight, for up to five years, where the same information previously had to be immediately destroyed if no links to terrorism were discovered.

And now no one seems to care that he signed the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order, which allows him to federalize any resource, including forcing citizens to fulfill needed "labor requirements," for the vague purpose of "national defense." In combination with the NDAA's declaration that the entire world is a battlefield in the never-ending War on Terror, this pretty much means we're under martial law, right now and indefinitely into the future.

What's frightening is that Obama hasn't even taken the gloves off yet. Discussing foreign policy with Russia's prime minister, he was caught on an open mic saying that he'll have "more flexibility" to deal with hot-button issues once he's re-elected and can't run for office again. In other words, once he's no longer accountable to the voters, it's really going to get fun.

Here's a taste of what NDRP has in store for you:



It's been noted that this executive order is an update of previous ones dating back several decades, with the revised version putting Fatherland Security -- which didn't exist during the last iteration -- in charge of carrying out the orders within. But there are two things to note here: (1) An unconstitutional power grab isn't OK just because it's already existed for years, and (2) there is one major difference in the rewrite, in that the implementation of the provisions of the executive order are no longer restricted to wartime or states of emergency -- they can be put into action during for purposes of "national defense," which could be pretty much anything the government wants it to be. Language new and exclusive to this version specifically states that these actions can be taken "under both emergency and non-emergency conditions."

Obama signed the order on a Friday afternoon, which is what legislators do when they don't want anyone paying attention to what they're doing. He similarly signed NDAA into law on New Year's Eve, when everyone was out partying. Seemed to work like a charm in both cases, since the mainstream press dutifully ignored both actions.

And if anyone doubts just how much the media regularly manipulates public opinion and shapes what people care about, look at the endless chatter about this black kid who was shot and killed by Someone Who Wasn't Black. Sadly, people kill people every day. Whites kill whites. Blacks kill blacks. Blacks kill whites. But when a half-white guy kills a black kid, the media blows it up into front-page news with screaming headlines and turns it into a tired lecture on race relations. And the public dutifully plays right into their hands. One online petition calling for the killer's prosecution (he apparently says he was acting in self-defense, and there were no witnesses) has garnered more than 400,000 signatures, and marches are being organized all over the country. Hell, I never even heard of this kid until my Facebook page lit up with it in the aftermath. It's amazing how much power the "off" button on your TV has.

Now, imagine if people got this stirred up about things that really mattered. Imagine if the media beat the drum this hard over a guy who predicted the housing meltdown, a guy who called out the corruption and lack of accountability in the Federal Reserve long before it was printing money to bail out the banks that caused the meltdown (and secretly sent cash overseas), a guy who called "blowback" while everyone else was focused on engaging in more of the activity that led to the blowback in the first place. They could tell you there's a guy running for president who has a plan to rein in out-of-control spending and work on our massive, crippling national debt. They could mention that he embraces the Constitution and the limits it places on the government in defense of personal liberty. The dutiful public's reaction to the current feeding frenzy over the murdered kid proves how easy it is to lead people around by the nose and manipulate public opinion. If they wanted to, the press could make the Ron Paul Revolution the biggest story in this election cycle, and viewers would lap it right up.

But they don't. And they don't because the media and the major political parties are both slaves to the corporations and special interests that own them. And they're not about to draw attention to the guy who threatens to tear down their power structure. As Fred Reed observes:

Many Americans I suspect will insist that the press is free, because they are repeatedly told that it is, because they have nothing to which to compare it, and because the control is most adroitly managed. But it exists.

In America control does not work as it did in the USSR, by savagely punishing the least expression of undesired ideas; this would be obvious and arouse opposition. American control works on the principle of fooling enough of the people, enough of the time.

Strictly speaking, the US does have a free press. You can easily buy the books of David Duke, Karl Marx, Hitler, or Malcolm X. The trick is that few read. Television and newspapers rule, and they are owned by large corporations concerned with furthering the interests of large corporations.

Those interests are maximizing the viewership for advertising, which is where the money comes from; keeping the lid on in a country in which various groups would be at each other's throats if demagogues were allowed to provide the spark; keeping corporations from suffering any sort of control, and furthering the political agendas of the media.

Thus you never, ever, allow serious criticism of Israel, and you never, ever, allow an articulate Palestinian to offer his views. You do not allow any coverage of crime by blacks, which might lead to social upheaval. You do not allow distressing reportage of the wars -- a little girl looking in puzzlement at her bowels hanging out thanks to shrapnel. You do not do any serious investigative reporting of corporate corruption. And so on. Keep it bland. Keep it reassuring.

Don't let, say, a cop talk about what really goes on, or a GI to talk about what soldiers really do in Afghanistan, and don't let political debates touch on substance. Don't allow, for example, unrehearsed questions: "Mr. Santorum, can you name in order the countries that border on Iran?" Oh no. One mustn't reveal to the voters that neither they nor the candidates know what they are talking about. Better to maintain the illusion of Informed Citizens Engaging in Democracy.

We will pay a price for refusing to take off our blinders and see what's going on all around us in plain sight. As H.L. Mencken once said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." And "good and hard" is exactly how it'll feel when an overbearing cop has his boot on your head, telling you that you're getting what you deserve.

By that time, even if you finally do wake up and realize that this isn't what America is supposed to be, it may well be too late to do anything about it.

Keeping you safe from 3-year-olds in wheelchairs

Well, the TSA goons strike again. This time, the terrorist threat was a 3-year-old boy in a wheelchair, on his way to a Disney vacation with his family. There could be explosives hidden in that leg cast, you know.



The frightened boy's parents were prohibited from approaching him while he was touched all over his body by the Government Stranger. He even had to lift his shirt, so he could be swabbed to check for incendiaries.

If this doesn't make you sick enough, some of the accompanying comments at Huffington Post should:

If someone in a private booth can see the outline of my junk, whatever. ... How can we have reasonable security with zealots that scream "privacy" for EVERYTHING?

Yeah, because why should I mind if a complete stranger can see me naked? That privacy stuff is so overrated.

What is the matter with people, how do you please them? Do we want security or comfort, privacy and the whole nine yards?

Oh, we want security, at the expense of all else. By the way, the government will be over to your house tomorrow to install security cameras in every room, just so they can keep tabs on you and make sure you aren't building bombs in your free time. You're fine with that, right?

Just part of the post 9/11 world we live in get used to it its not changing anytime soon.

That's right. Just roll over and submit. Exactly what they want.

I didn't see anything wrong with the way the TSA did their job. In these times these are the rules to flying now and for all of you that are bitching about how the TSA is doing their job stop. Do you want to be safe or dead your choice?

Somewhat hilariously, the above commenter wrapped up by stating, "I'm tired of Americans being scared of their own shadow !!!" Apparently, he is oblivious to the cognitive dissonance.

My own grandchild had leg surgery at Shriners when she was three. If she was flying at the time and TSA thought it was necessary to pat her down, I would be fine with it. I am more concerned with everyone arriving safely than I am with political correctness. TSA is part of the flying experience - they are not the enemy. Deal with it.

What a lucky grandchild, learning such important lessons about being secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Best to teach them when they're young to submit to the government wherever and whenever.

We should be glad someone is checking! ... Prepare your children for the "pat down" possibility before traveling. If they are very young and you do not want to scare them, tell them the "airport guys" may play a game with them while checking in and you are part of the game. They won't be surprised and will feel lucky they were selected to "play."

Remember when we told you that you should never let strangers touch you in your private areas, little Timmy? Well, it's OK when the stranger at the airport does it.

Better safe than sorry. No one can be trusted, unfortunately.

Least of all the government.

Look, everyone with half a brain knows this is just theater. The TSA doesn't keep anyone safe by groping children, asking a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper, or telling amputees to remove their artificial limbs -- all of which they've done. They do what they do to give frightened Americans the illusion of safety when they get on a plane. Just remember: The TSA didn't catch the Shoe Bomber or the Underwear Bomber. It was other passengers who stopped them.

To all those who are so willing to let the government run wild, no matter what the cost to our liberties, I have few quotes of my own to share:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin

If ye love ... the tranquility of servitude [better] than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams

Where have all the patriots gone?

The shining city on a hill, shrouded in darkness

I think I first realized that I was repulsed by my nation's foreign policy when we invaded Iraq the first time, back in early 1991. I did an oral report on antiwar movements that year in one of my political science classes, and when I criticized our involvement in Iraq, I remember one angry, burly kid shooting up out of his chair, pointing a finger at me, and saying in a loud, authoritative voice, "If you don't like this country, leave."

I finished my report by playing Country Joe McDonald's Woodstock performance of the "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," which includes these salient lines:

And it's 1-2-3, what are we fightin' for?

Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,

The next stop is Vietnam.

 What are we fighting for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn. That pretty much summed up the American attitude at the time of the Gulf War. "Support Our Troops" became a national mantra. Everywhere you looked, the slogan popped up on bumper stickers, billboards, ball caps, and T-shirts. Yellow ribbons popped up everywhere. Saddam Hussein, naturally, was cast as the convenient villain, even though our own government had been directly supporting him for years.

Donald Rumsfeld, then a special envoy to Ronald Reagan, shaking hands with U.S. ally Saddam Hussein, 1983.

And now Saddam had to be stopped because … why? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn.

Oh, that's right, because Iraq invaded Kuwait. And this was of significance to us because … why? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn.

Well, obviously, it was because being in Kuwait put Iraq too close to the Saudi oil fields. It's always about money -- and if it's the Middle East, it's always about oil. Yet if you so much as suggested that we shouldn't shed blood for oil, you were reviled as an America-hater. You didn't dare question your nation's motives. Here, watch the flag-waving spectacle at the Super Bowl and start chanting "USA! USA!" -- as if invading a nation and killing people is akin to some kind of sporting event. Now be a good, obedient citizen and stop asking questions.

A few years later, before he left office, Bush the Elder took on an anti-Gulf War protestor by shouting at him -- and I'm paraphrasing because I can't find a clip of it anywhere -- "If we wouldn't have invaded, you'd be paying 20 bucks a gallon for gas!" It was a quick clip on one of the nightly news programs, and I don't remember anyone making a big deal about it at the time, but to me it was mind-blowing. After being told over and over that the war was about protecting Kuwait's sovereignty and stopping big, bad Saddam Hussein, here was an off-handed admission that it was indeed about oil after all -- just as the critics had said all along.

Things like that make you wonder just how honorable our intentions have been in most of the wars we've been involved in. Let's face it: Most of them have had nothing to do with national self-defense or aiding our allies. And a lot of them were built on lies, from the non-attack in the Gulf of Tonkin that led to Vietnam, to the fake concern for Kuwaitis in the Gulf War, to the complete fabrications about WMDs in Iraq that led to the post-9/11 invasion.

But even worse, how do we act, how do we comport ourselves as representatives of America -- that beacon of democracy and freedom, Reagan's "shining city on a hill" -- once we've invaded and hostilities have begun?

Well, we could go back as far as the many atrocities visited upon the American Indians, but let's start with the recent past, because that gives us plenty to talk about all by itself. In Vietnam, more than 300 civilians were massacred at My Lai, with at least one girl raped before she was murdered. Marines killed two dozen unarmed men, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005. And who can forget the repugnant images from Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were tortured, beaten, and sexually humiliated by our fine men and women in uniform?

The subject is fresh in my mind following this past week's news that an American soldier went nuts and killed 16 people in Afghanistan. The soldier was whisked out of the country before he could face local justice for his part in the murder spree -- which, according to one witness, may have involved more than just one soldier and resulted in the death of a 2-month-old baby, among other innocent children. The same witness said the people killed in one home had their bodies piled together and set on fire.

This, of course, follows the January video showing American soldiers relieving themselves on dead Afghan bodies, and the February news of Koran burnings at a U.S. base in Afghanistan.

Stay classy, U.S. military.

Much more happens like this in places where cameras aren't rolling to document it. The CIA runs a number of off-the-grid detention centers around the world, and a series of U.N. investigations revealed that torture is common in these places:

American interrogators force their captives to take off their clothes and remain naked for indefinite periods. They also gag detainees and shut their eyes while hanging them from the cell ceiling for long hours.

And if anyone thought Peace Prize winner Obama -- drone-bomber extraordinare, assassin of U.S. citizens, and destroyer of American citizens' right to trial -- was any better than his predecessor when it comes to human rights, the same report, from 2011, notes that the number of detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan has "tripled since the end of the Bush administration" and that they're held "without any charge or due legal process."

Among the horrors reported by those held at Bagram:

Former inmates report incidents of sleep deprivation, beatings and various forms of sexual humiliation. In some cases, an interrogator would place his penis along the face of the detainee while he was being questioned. Other inmates were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian inmate who was 15 at the time, says military personal used him as a living mop. "Military police poured pine oil on the floor and on me. And then, with me lying on my stomach with my hands and feet cuffed together behind me, the military police dragged me back and forth through the mixture of urine and pine oil on the floor."

Back in 2009, Obama sought to suppress further photos from Abu Ghraib that showed, among other things:

… an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Around the same time, reports said that abuses at the Guantanamo prison -- the same prison Obama pledged to close but never did -- were at an all-time high under Obama:

Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.

WikiLeaks later reported that abuses continued at Abu Ghraib after the scandal there broke, with hundreds of allegations against U.S. soldiers, including electrocutions and rape.

Perhaps most damning of all is a lengthy and very detailed report from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which chronicles the systemic abuse at Guantanamo. Here's just a small sample of the stories the center collected:

"Once they stomped my back," Al-Laithi wrote [in an affidavit filed recently with the district court]. "An MP threw me on the floor, and they lifted me up and slammed me back down. A doctor said I have two broken vertebrae and I risk being paralyzed if the spinal cord is injured more."

Al-Laithi said his neck is also permanently damaged because IRF teams repeatedly forced him to bend over toward his knees. While many prisoners have had their anuses probed during strip searches, Mr. Al-Laithi also alleges that the military forced a large object into his anus on the pretext of doing a medical exam.

"I am in constant pain," he continued. "I would prefer to be buried alive than continue to receive the treatment I receive. At least I would suffer less and die."

***

[A]n MP named Smith burst into the cage and jumped on Mr. Al Dossari’s back wearing full riot gear. According to other detainees who viewed this incident, Smith weighed approximately 240 pounds. At least two other men held Mr. Al Dossari by the legs. MP Smith began to choke him with his hands, while another repeatedly hit his head on the floor. While being beaten, Mr. Al Dossari lost consciousness.

… When the cage was hosed down later, the water ran red with blood. Mr. Al Dossari later asked Smith why Smith had beaten him. Smith replied, "because I'm Christian."

***

The ICE personnel [redacted] removed her overblouse behind the individual and proceeded stroking his hair and neck while uttering sexual overtones and making comments about his religious affiliation. The session progressed to where she was seated on his lap making sexual affiliated movements with her chest and pelvis while again speaking sexual [sic] oriented sentences. This then progressed to the individual being placed on the floor with her straddling him, etc. Needless to say many inappropriate comments were made during this time concerning the session and the area had the atmosphere of a party.

***

Mr. Ait Idir was in intense pain. He feared he would be crippled and lay down in a fetal position. The IRF enforcers jumped on him. The first team member landed on his back while he was face down; the second did the same. … While the two enforcers pinned him down -- after he had stopped resisting and his hands were tied, and after he was fully in their control, one of the guards slowly bent his fingers back until one of them broke. The pain was excruciating, but he was afraid that if he screamed the IRF would react by injuring him further. He was not given medical treatment for his fingers despite many requests and the clear deformity of his hand.

… Mr. Ait Idir's resistance during the episode of religious-physical abuse described above led to a further, unprovoked attack, which ultimately resulted in partial facial paralysis and a life-long disability. … He sat on the floor as instructed. Despite his full cooperation, he was sprayed in the face with chemical irritant, and put into restraints. Guards then slammed him head first into the cell floor, lowered him, face-first into the toilet and flushed the toilet -- submerging his head.

He was then carried outside and thrown onto the crushed stones that surround the cells. While he was down on the ground, his assailants stuffed a hose in his mouth and forced water down his throat. Then a soldier jumped on the left side of his head with full weight, forcing stones to cut into Mr. Ait Idir’s face near his eye. The guards twisted his middle finger and thumb on his right hand back almost to the point of breaking them. The knuckles were dislocated. As a result of this incident, the left side of Mr. Ait Idir's face became paralyzed for several months.

***

U.S. government officials immobilized the hunger strikers' heads by strapping them in the restraint chair, restrained their hands, inserted feeding tubes in their noses, and force fed them large bags of liquid nutrients. The account further describe hunger strikers bleeding and vomiting from these actions, and urinating and defecating on themselves because Respondents had denied them access to a bathroom.

***

[P]risoners were frequently shaved as punishment. Lakhdar Boumedien said that growing a beard is a form of Muslim religious expression but "the U.S. thinks it marks a terrorist." Fahmi Abdullah Ahmed Al Towlaqi has had his head shaved three times by Military Personnel; one time he was shaved so that he was left with a cross-shaped patch of hair. Other prisoners have stated that some guards mock the call to prayer by barking like dogs or donkeys.

And these are the people we're supposed to stand and applaud for their supposed efforts in "keeping us free" and "serving our country." It's fascinating to think back to how reviled our soldiers were when they came home from Vietnam. Yet those soldiers were drafted into the service, while serving in today's military is completely voluntary. So if anything, the atrocities our soldiers commit today should be met with even more revulsion. But they aren't. Instead, we turn these people into heroes -- people we practically worship.

I don't care how hell-bent anyone is on revenge for what happened on 9/11: A nation that claims to set an example for the rest of the world, that purports to follow the rule of law, and that is supposed to abide by international treaties for the treatment of prisoners does not stoop to this level. These are the actions of barbaric animals, not human beings. Furthermore, you can't expect to stop terrorism when you act like this. If anything, our actions will make terrorist recruitment efforts all the easier. Blowback is real.

Not that anyone deserved to die on 9/11, and not that we have no right to defend ourselves, but you can't act like the schoolyard bully and not expect to suffer repercussions for it. The tragedy of 9/11 may never have happened if we hadn't been meddling in other nations' affairs in the first place. Ron Paul illustrated the problem by imagining how we'd react if another country set up military bases on U.S. soil and committed acts of aggression against our own citizens.

 This is why Dr. Paul said we need a Golden Rule when it comes to our foreign policy. Of course, the good Christians who were in the audience when he made that suggestion roundly booed him. Clearly, in the minds of many Americans, "do unto others" now means "do unto others before they do unto you.

The United States has a military presence in 150 countries. We act like the world's cop, insisting that everyone else play by our rules. We have no right to do that, and we would never stand for it if anyone else tried to do it to us. If this nation ever learned to mind its own business and live in peace with the rest of the planet, the world would be a much more pleasant place.

But since it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon, I suppose that big, burly "love or it leave it" bully who verbally accosted me back in 1991 will eventually get his way. I do love this country -- at least the principles it was founded on -- but it increasingly seems as if there's no room in America for those who don't view the rest of the world through the scope of a rifle.