Is The U.S Descending Into Fascism?

DriftingByTheStorm

yosi wrote:

"Global governance" is a euphamism. It doesn't actually mean that anyone is setting up a global government. It just refers to international cooperation in setting up institutions to deal with shared global issues.

i never said it DID mean that. YOU were the one that implied that.
My post was straight forward and deliberately avoided any negative conspiratorial language. In fact, if you read the entire post, you would see that I repeatedly reiterated that I believed the motives underlying the actions of the Global Elite were both positive, pro-democratic (in a superficial sense atleast, since i believe they truly desire some sort of Scientific Meritocracy) and aimed at the greater good for the greatest number. I just think they tend to be self-righteously, and they believe that the general public is so stupid that they have no need to justify themselves to us. It is unfortunate, because if they would engage in honest dialogue with the public, I think they would find nearly universal support from the people. Who doesn't want a better, more peaceful, more just world? It's just their methodology is outdated. Maybe it worked (and was necessary) when the masses were relatively ignorant and beholden to superstition, but the modern populace is fairly well educated and capable of thinking on a level at-least somewhat comparable to the elite. The only difference is they make every effort to keep themselves informed on the "real realities" of global geopolitics, and yet conversely they do everything possible to keep from us their true aims and ambitions. They feed us the most utter bullshit on nightly news shows, and consistently bait all their news articles with deliberately overtly-partisan remarks, and "fringe" issues (abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, etc) used to divide us, confuse us, and keep us distracted from the real nitty gritty.

Instead, if they would just open up and engage in honest dialogue, i think they would find a readily accepting public. Nobody, and i mean NOBODY believes the current system is working. Who DOESN'T want real change? Why not engage in honest dialogue on your Global Federalist ideals, instead of lying and cheating your way towards them?


The point of my post was not just to be a fringe conspiracy nut.
it was to point out that the REASON THINGS FEEL TOTALITARIAN\FASCIST is because the well-intentioned will of the elite is being acted upon in largely non-democratic ways, mostly because of the perceived (by the elite) resistance of the general public to such ideas.

just my humble opinion.

riotgrl

brianlux wrote:

riotgrl wrote:

My high school students were discussing the suspension of civil liberties during war time - in regards to Japanese internment during WWII and they ALL agreed that it is OK to give up civil liberties during war. They then went on to expand that to include giving up rights when we aren't at war. As long as the government could rationalize it as keeping us safe. I can't tell you how many examples I gave them to see if they would agree in each instance and THEY DID. I am still reeling from that conversation! I hope they just don't grasp the seriousness and didn't really mean it - otherwise I am afraid for our future!

riotgrl, I think you'll find this link fascinating and useful for your class. My high school girl friend was in Ron Jones' class in which The Wave experiment took place and I sat in on it a few times. Caused quite a stir back then! In 2010 high school friend, Philip Neel, made a documentary about The Wave. Here's the links (click on 2010 Documentary for info on Phil's movie):

http://www.thewave.tk/

I have used that documentary before with my AP Psych class. Can't believe you know people who were in that experiment!

peacefrompaul

WaveCameCrashin wrote:

riotgrl wrote:

My high school students were discussing the suspension of civil liberties during war time - in regards to Japanese internment during WWII and they ALL agreed that it is OK to give up civil liberties during war. They then went on to expand that to include giving up rights when we aren't at war. As long as the government could rationalize it as keeping us safe. I can't tell you how many examples I gave them to see if they would agree in each instance and THEY DID. I am still reeling from that conversation! I hope they just don't grasp the seriousness and didn't really mean it - otherwise I am afraid for our future!

and thats exactly the point im trying to make. Kids are being indoctranated and are being dumbed down for a reason. Not to mention isnt that the reason "Liberty" and "Freedom"
why most wars if not all are fought ?

Sure, if you believe you need to wage war to protect your "Liberty" and "Freedom".

CH156378

yosi wrote:

No, America is not becoming a Fascist country. Study history. Look up what fascism actually is. America is far from being a fascist country. America has never come close to becoming a fascist country. Having a right-wing government does not make a country fascist.

I haven't read the decision closely enough to have a good opinion on it yet, but my initial understanding is that the decision is based on concerns for safety in jails. Arrestees are subject to pre-trial detention, during which they are held as part of the jail's "general population." It is standard procedure to search individuals for weapons before incarceration. This serves to protect the detainee, the other detainees around him, and the general security of the institution. Again, I need to read the opinion again, but I'm pretty sure that it's not as broad as described in the article, and that a policy of actually strip searching every person arrested no matter the circumstance could be still be effectively challenged.

+1

riotgrl

peacefrompaul wrote:

WaveCameCrashin wrote:

riotgrl wrote:

My high school students were discussing the suspension of civil liberties during war time - in regards to Japanese internment during WWII and they ALL agreed that it is OK to give up civil liberties during war. They then went on to expand that to include giving up rights when we aren't at war. As long as the government could rationalize it as keeping us safe. I can't tell you how many examples I gave them to see if they would agree in each instance and THEY DID. I am still reeling from that conversation! I hope they just don't grasp the seriousness and didn't really mean it - otherwise I am afraid for our future!

and thats exactly the point im trying to make. Kids are being indoctranated and are being dumbed down for a reason. Not to mention isnt that the reason "Liberty" and "Freedom"
why most wars if not all are fought ?

Sure, if you believe you need to wage war to protect your "Liberty" and "Freedom".

That's what every president from Wilson (We're making the world safe for democracy....because we have to believe their is a more noble, more moral reason for war not just to take/protect our economic assets) on has told us so of course most Americans believe that's why we go to war. If you're interested, contrast Zinn's chapter on WWII and Larry Schweikart's view on WWII. Talk about a difference of opinion!

Kids are being indoctrinated about the certain beliefs because parents, society, etc. says you are a bad American if you question the decision's of our leaders. Ugh! I hate that there are certain states that are passing laws limiting teachers from pointing out the obvious fallacies of our founding fathers. Isn't that what critical thinking is about? I tell my kids that I don't care what your opinion is as long as you understand why you believe what you believe, because you've done research, not just because someone else told you to think that. School should be about creating critical thinkers who question everything not just accept what is told to them by their parents, by society, by the textbook or by the teacher. Sorry - rant over

peacefrompaul

riotgrl wrote:

That's what every president from Wilson (We're making the world safe for democracy....because we have to believe their is a more noble, more moral reason for war not just to take/protect our economic assets) on has told us so of course most Americans believe that's why we go to war. If you're interested, contrast Zinn's chapter on WWII and Larry Schweikart's view on WWII. Talk about a difference of opinion!

Kids are being indoctrinated about the certain beliefs because parents, society, etc. says you are a bad American if you question the decision's of our leaders. Ugh! I hate that there are certain states that are passing laws limiting teachers from pointing out the obvious fallacies of our founding fathers. Isn't that what critical thinking is about? I tell my kids that I don't care what your opinion is as long as you understand why you believe what you believe, because you've done research, not just because someone else told you to think that. School should be about creating critical thinkers who question everything not just accept what is told to them by their parents, by society, by the textbook or by the teacher. Sorry - rant over

Right, and that's not (in my opinion) the reason we have been going to war. Bless you for pushing critical thinking!

I'll have to read Zinn's WWII stuff... I've only read some of his work on Vietnam

Jeanwah

Asking American's the direction that US government is going in is a joke if you ask me. Because living within the country, you don't get a good view of the way things are working; we're just the small people doing as our gov't/media tells us. :roll:

Asking the rest of the world, which gets a more objective view as outsiders will deem more accurate answers. They know what's going on, but Americans are too immersed to even know what's really going on.

If you ask me, capitalism will be the U.S.'s absolute downfall, actually, it will be the world's downfall inevitably.

peacefrompaul

DriftingByTheStorm wrote:

yosi wrote:

Walter Kronkite's opinions don't offer any proof that there is a secret movement among world elites to institute a unified world government.

Fast forward to the end of the video where Hillary Clinton gives him a video-recorded personal "thank you" for all his efforts to move forward with "Global Governance".

??? still not clicking in your head ???

Yeah... It's fucking disgusting.

Bennyorr4

Jeanwah wrote:

Asking American's the direction that US government is going in is a joke if you ask me. Because living within the country, you don't get a good view of the way things are working; we're just the small people doing as our gov't/media tells us. :roll:

Asking the rest of the world, which gets a more objective view as outsiders will deem more accurate answers. They know what's going on, but Americans are too immersed to even know what's really going on.

If you ask me, capitalism will be the U.S.'s absolute downfall, actually, it will be the world's downfall inevitably.

+1 :P

dustinpardue

Fascism, yes we definitely are. I don't think we are starting descend, the transition started almost 50 years ago. Nice post byrnzie

Byrnzie

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... et-freedom

Why I'm suing the US government to protect internet freedom

The NDAA means the US military can put anyone under suspicion of being a terror threat and detain them for ever

Birgitta Jónsdóttir
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 April 2012


Freedom for most people is something sacred, and many have been willing to sacrifice their lives for it. It is not just another word, for we measure the health of our democracies by the standard of freedom. We use it to measure our happiness and prosperity. Sadly, freedom of information, expression and speech is being eroded gradually without people paying much attention to it. Freedom of movement is permitted within certain zones, freedom of reading is disappearing, and the right to privacy is dwindling with the increased surveillance of our every move.

When the world wide web came into being, it was an unrestricted, free flowing world of creativity, connectivity and close encounters of the internet kind. It was as if the collective consciousness had taken on material (yet virtual!) form and people soon learned to use it to work, play and gather. Today's social and democratic reform is born and bred online where people can freely exchange views and knowledge. Some of us old-school internet freedom fighters understood this value way before the web became such a part of our daily lives. One of them is John Perry Barlow, who in 1996 wrote a Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace in a response to an attempt to legalise restrictions on this brand new world. In it he declares: "Governments of the industrial world, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather."

Barlow inspired me and others to create the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), a parliamentary proposal unanimously approved by the Icelandic parliament in 2010, tasking the government to make Iceland a safe haven for freedom of information and expression, where privacy online would be as sacred and guarded as it is in the real world. The spirit of IMMI is in stark contrast with the serious attacks we are currently faced with. We have legal monsters like Acta, Sopa, Pipa and now Cispa; we have anti-terrorist acts abused to tear these liberties apart; we have armies of corporate lawyers scrutinising every bit of news prior to it getting out to us before we ever get to know the real stories that should remain in the public domain.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The US government legally hacks into other nations' parliamentary private social media data because it is stored on servers originating in the US, as in my Twitter case. The infamous EU data retention law is making us all into terrorist subjects by default, and now we have the newest addition in a dangerous cocktail of erosion of civil liberties online with the offline reality: meet the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), also known as the Homeland Battlefield Act. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describes it thus:

"For the first time in American history, we have a law authorising the worldwide and indefinite military detention of people captured far from any battlefield. The NDAA has no temporal or geographic limitations. It is completely at odds with our values, violates the constitution, and corrodes our nation's commitment to the rule of law."

Since the US department of justice is ploughing my private data and WikiLeaks (whom I volunteered for in 2010 by co-producing Collateral Murder) are defined by the US vice-president as cyberterrorists, I felt under direct threat when NDAA was passed. I have not been able to travel to the US for more than a year under advice from the Icelandic state department. The only way for me to go is on a UN visa (the same kind as Gaddafi and Hussein got when going to the UN) when I plan to attend the UN assembly later this year. Basically what NDAA means is that the US military can put anyone, anywhere under the suspicion of being a terror threat or an associate and detain you for ever, without you having access to a lawyer or a court. So I joined Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and other activists https://www.stopndaa.org/ in suing the United States government to stop the implementation of the NDAA. Naomi Wolf was kind enough to read my testimony at a US court last month, since I could not be there in person.

The good news is that cyberspace is full of hacktivists and our offline world has a growing Occupy movement, inspiring all of us into action, co-creating a different reality in the spirit of a true online and offline freedom.

Byrnzie

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/04/cour ... ack-obama/

Hard National Security Choices
Court Documents in Hedges et al v. Barack Obama

By Raffaela Wakeman
Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Yesterday we mentioned that a suit had been filed in the Southern District of New York by a number of commentators and public figures, arguing that the NDAA’s detention provisions will apply to them in their “daily professional work” and that they could be detained under the provisions.

The plaintiffs include Christopher Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Jennifer Bolen, Noam Chomsky, Alexa O’Brien, U.S. Day of Rage, Kai Wargalla, and the Hon. Brigitta Jonsdottir (a member of parliament in Iceland). They’ve even got a website dedicated to their cause, which describes this initial lawsuit as “Round One”:

Round One is a group of individuals who have stepped forward because we have reason to believe we face the potential for serious harm under the NDAA. However, while the language of this law is so broad and vague, it could affect anyone. For this reason, In Round Two, we will be opening this lawsuit up to the entire US public and citizens of other nations. Then, you can either sign up to publicly support this lawsuit, or consider becoming an actual plaintiff. We are offering both options because we need to make sure our legal case is as strong as possible. More info soon, so stay tuned!

We’ve pulled together all the court documents that have been filed so far, including the complaint, the plaintiffs’ initial brief in support of the motion for a temporary restraining order as well as their supplemental brief on standing, the government’s memo in opposition to the injunction, and the declarations of Kai Wargalla, Alexa O’Brien, and Brigitta Jonsdottir.

The plaintiffs have two main arguments, which they summarize:

The Act improperly authorizes that civilians in the United States be detained indefinitely by the military, that they be tried by military commission or military court and that they may be subject to removal to other jurisdictions in violation of the Amendments V and VI of the Constitution.

The Act fails to give reasonable notice of the acts and conduct that will render a person liable to military detention and is overbroad thereby chilling and impinging upon protexted expressive and associative acts.

The government summarizes its counterargument in the following way:

Plaintiffs’ challenge to section 1021 must be rejected. Properly understood, section 1021 merely restates the detention authority that the government already had under the AUMF. In the statute’s own words, it “affirms” the AUMF’s detention authority while expressly not “expand[ing]” it, and defines those “covered persons” who may be detained in terms no more broad than the government has advanced before the courts—and that the courts have upheld—for years.

Based on their misunderstandings of the law, plaintiffs now purport to fear that they will be subjected to indefinite military detention simply for their political views and expression. But those fears are baseless. Plaintiffs do not assert that they or anyone similarly situated have ever been detained or threatened with detention under the identical preexisting authority provided by the AUMF. Nor can they demonstrate that their subjective fears are reasonable in light of the government’s implementation of its detention authority under the AUMF. For those reasons, plaintiffs lack standing, and therefore are unable to demonstrate a likelihood of success in this action, irreparable harm, or a balance of the equities involved that tips in their favor. Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, therefore, should be denied.

Southern District of New York Judge Katherine B. Forrest has not yet issued a decision on the plaintiff’s motion.

Byrnzie

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... gone-rogue

How the National Security Agency has gone rogue

The NSA, which dwarfs the CIA, is so powerful that those with oversight are too intimidated to check its incursions on liberty

Amy Goodman
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 April 2012

Three targeted Americans: a career government intelligence official, a filmmaker and a hacker. None of these US citizens was charged with a crime, but they have been tracked, surveilled, detained – sometimes at gunpoint – and interrogated, with no access to a lawyer. Each remains resolute in standing up to the increasing government crackdown on dissent.

The intelligence official: William Binney worked for almost 40 years at the secretive National Security Agency (NSA), the US spy agency that dwarfs the CIA. As technical director of the NSA's world geopolitical and military analysis reporting group, Binney told me he was tasked to "see how we could solve collection, analysis and reporting on military and geopolitical issues all around the world, every country in the world."

Throughout the 1990s, the NSA developed a massive eavesdropping system codenamed ThinThread, which, Binney says, maintained crucial protections on the privacy of US citizens demanded by the US constitution. He recalled, "After 9/11, all the wraps came off for NSA," as massive domestic spying became the norm. He resigned on 31 October 2001. Along with several other NSA officials, Binney reported his concerns to Congress and to the Department of Defense.

Then, in 2007, as then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was being questioned on Capitol Hill about the very domestic spying to which Binney objected, a dozen FBI agents charged into his house, guns drawn. They forced aside his son and found Binney, a diabetic amputee, in the shower. They pointed their guns at his head, then led him to his back porch and interrogated him. Three others were raided that morning. Binney called the FBI raid "retribution and intimidation so we didn't go to the judiciary committee in the Senate and tell them, 'Well, here's what Gonzales didn't tell you, OK.'" Binney was never charged with any crime.

The filmmaker: Laura Poitras is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, whose recent films include My Country, My Country, about the US occupation of Iraq, and The Oath, which was filmed in Yemen. Since 2006, Poitras has been detained and questioned at airports at least 40 times. She has had her computer and reporter's notebooks confiscated and presumably copied, without a warrant. The most recent time, 5 April, she took notes during her detention. The agents told her to stop, as they considered her pen a weapon. She told me:

"I feel like I can't talk about the work that I do in my home, in my place of work, on my telephone, and sometimes in my country. So the chilling effect is huge. It's enormous."

The hacker: Jacob Appelbaum works as a computer security researcher for the nonprofit organization the Tor Project, which is a free software package that allows people to browse the internet anonymously, evading government surveillance. Tor was actually created by the US Navy, and is now developed and maintained by Appelbaum and his colleagues. Tor is used by dissidents around the world to communicate over the internet. Tor also serves as the main way that the controversial WikiLeaks website protects those who release documents to it.

Appelbaum has volunteered for WikiLeaks, leading to intense US government surveillance. Appelbaum spoke in place of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, at a conference called Hackers on Planet Earth, or Hope, as people feared Assange would be arrested. He started his talk by saying:

"Hello to all my friends and fans in domestic and international surveillance. I'm here today because I believe that we can make a better world."

He has been detained at least a dozen times at airports:

"I was put into a special room, where they frisked me, put me up against the wall … Another one held my wrists … They implied that if I didn't make a deal with them, that I'd be sexually assaulted in prison … They took my cellphones, they took my laptop. They wanted, essentially, to ask me questions about the Iraq war, the Afghan war, what I thought politically."

I asked Binney if he felt that the NSA has copies of every email sent in the US. He replied, "I believe they have most of them, yes." Binney said two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, have expressed concern, but have not spoken out, as, Binney says, they would lose their seats on the Senate select committee on intelligence.

Meanwhile, Congress is set to vote on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or Cispa. Proponents of internet freedom are fighting the bill, which they say will legalize what the NSA is secretly doing already. Before voting on Cispa, members of Congress, fond of quoting the country's founders, should recall these words of Benjamin Franklin:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Idris

FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites

CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory.

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require the firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.

In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.

The FBI general counsel's office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

In addition to the FBI's legislative proposal, there are indications that the Federal Communications Commission is considering reinterpreting CALEA to demand that products that allow video or voice chat over the Internet -- from Skype to Google Hangouts to Xbox Live -- include surveillance backdoors to help the FBI with its "Going Dark" program. CALEA applies to technologies that are a "substantial replacement" for the telephone system.

(More in the Article/Report)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57428067-83/fbi-we-need-wiretap-ready-web-sites-now/

FiveB247x

Yes. We merely have the illusion of freedom, security and access to things. Our rights are not concrete and therefore at a moments notice be taken away or abused in the name of justice or security of the state.

Jason P

I'm surprised anyone is even left to comment about this latest news after the majority of us were pulled from our homes when the Patriot Act was signed.

DriftingByTheStorm

Jason P wrote:

I'm surprised anyone is even left to comment about this latest news after the majority of us were pulled from our homes when the Patriot Act was signed.

My gulag came with complementary internet service!

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Totalitarianism? Really?! Again, study history. Learn what the terms you use actually connote.

Thanks for the advice, oh wise one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is when a government aims to control the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of its citizens.[2] Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/totalitarianism
to·tal·i·tar·i·an·ism

2. absolute control by the state or a governing branch of a highly centralized institution.



Hmm, a single party, which is effectively what the U.S has had for decades, under the pretense of having two parties, although both are essentially under the total control of big business and the elites.

peacefrompaul

Byrnzie wrote:

yosi wrote:

Totalitarianism? Really?! Again, study history. Learn what the terms you use actually connote.

Thanks for the advice, oh wise one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is when a government aims to control the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of its citizens.[2] Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/totalitarianism
to·tal·i·tar·i·an·ism

2. absolute control by the state or a governing branch of a highly centralized institution.



Hmm, a single party, which is effectively what the U.S has had for decades, under the pretense of having two parties, although both are essentially under the total control of big business and the elites.

Yes, yes, and yes

peacefrompaul

Jason P wrote:

I'm surprised anyone is even left to comment about this latest news after the majority of us were pulled from our homes when the Patriot Act was signed.

No worries, big brother is watching you.