The police before a rally Wednesday in Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, was shot by an officer last week.
Photo Credit Whitney Curtis for The New York Times
Spurred on by 9/11 and the War on Terror, America has become a
feared military force of terror but the prime target has always been the
American public which is becoming increasingly aware of their Government
sponsored militarized police who see and relate to them as Middle East
terrorists until proven innocent such as in Ferguson, Missouri. The
military-style occupation of Ferguson, Missouri has ripped aside the thin
veneer of democracy to expose a budding police state. This is what martial law
looks like: Allen L Roland, Ph.D
As
I watch, with alarm, the rapidly growing American militarized Police State as well
as George W Bush and Dick Cheney’s recent book tours ~ where they rationalize
their illegal wars and economic rape of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as justify
torture as a means to this criminal end ~ I am immediately reminded of
Milton Mayer’s classic THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE (The Germans 1933 – 1945).
Mayer’s
book describes the slow but sure seduction of the German people as their civil
liberties, freedoms and moral values were gradually stripped away by Hitler’s
fascist government while waving the flag of national security and patriotism.
Pg. 166 / 167 THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE
But
Then It Was Too Late ~ "What happened here was the gradual habituation of
the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving
decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so
complicated that the government had to act on information which the people
could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not
understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And
their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier
to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it
… this
separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so
gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even
intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true
patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and
reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the
slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter
and remoter.”
Apathy
increases with each measured step, as it most certainly has in America, and
Mayer knowingly describes the consequences for Germany in the early 1930’s~
Pg. 171 THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE
“In
between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each
of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much
worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you
at Step C? And so on to Step D ~ and one day, too late, your principles, if
you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of
self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my
little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jewish swine,' collapses it
all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed
completely under your nose. The world you live in ~ your nation, your people
~ is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all
untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the
visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you
never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the
forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people
who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is
transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules
without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended
this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go
all the way… You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years
ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have
imagined … Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are,
what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for
that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing).”
Read article ~ http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/TheyThoughtTheyWereFree.html
And
that is Mayer’s main point ~ it is the spirit that dramatically changes when we
accept if not condone the disintegration of our national moral values and civil
liberties through illegal wars and occupations as well as our crimes against
humanity such as torture, secret renditions as well as intrusive full body
scans and pat downs, which will continue to be extended under the pretext of
national security and the War on Terror ~ and especially when it extends to
our own country, America.
Paul
Craig Roberts correctly writes that the War on Terror is a Hoax; “In the past decade,
Washington has killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans millions
of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the “war on terror.”
Washington’s attacks on the countries constitute naked aggression and impact
primarily civilian populations and infrastructure and, thereby, constitutes
war crimes under law. Nazis were executed precisely for what Washington is
doing today.”
See article ~ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29273.htm
Then what was is the Obama/Biden administration so afraid of?
They are obviously afraid of the Truth and, in particular, an informed
public in possession of the truth. And the truth is that we are owned, lock,
stock, and barrel by Wall Street, the Corpocracy and Washington as well as a
Congress that is in bed with them. And that
the War on Terror is being increasingly being seen, by the world, as a War of
Terror on anyone who does not fall in step with a heavily armed Imperialistic fascist state and it's surrogate states ~ such as
Israel.
It is interesting to note that the one country on this planet that is seen
as the greatest threat to World Peace is the United States. (2014 WIN/Gallup International Poll)
Which
brings me to Ferguson, Missouri ~ as an obvious example of where we are heading by treating American
citizens like terrorists or insurgents in an occupied country. An analysis done earlier this
summer by the New York Times found that since 2006, police departments across
America have received 435 armored vehicles, 533 planes, 93,763 machine guns,
and last, but not least, 432 mine-resistant armored trucks, because you
never know when you're going to run into terrorist laid mines on Main Street
USA.
FERGUSON, Mo. ~ In the five
days since an unarmed young black man, Michael
Brown, was fatally shot by a police officer
here, the selective release of information about the shooting, and especially
the anonymity granted to the officer, has stoked frustrations in this largely
African-American community north of St. Louis, where residents describe
increasingly tense relations with a militarized police.
This is once again what Martial law looks like.
The Ferguson Police Department riot squad moving
towards a protester. (photo: Getty Images)
As reported by Julie Bowman and Erick Hekholm, NY Times ~ "On Wednesday night, scores of police officers in riot gear and armored trucks showed up to disperse protesters who had gathered on the streets near the scene of the shooting. Some officers perched atop the vehicles with their guns trained on the crowds while protesters chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” A police spokesman said that some demonstrators had thrown Molotov cocktails at officers and that some had tried to set fires. The police used tear gas on demonstrators, and some protesters said rubber bullets had been fired at them. Police said one officer appeared to have suffered a broken ankle after being hit by a brick…Two reporters covering the protests also said they had been arrested inside a McDonald’s for trespassing and later released without charges or an explanation. The reporters, Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post, both said they had been handled roughly by the police." See report and video : http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-ferguson-washington-post-reporter-wesley-lowery-gives-account-of-his-arrest/2014/08/13/0fe25c0e-2359-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
As Carl Gibson
correctly writes in Reader Supported News ~ "The FAA has just
declared city of Ferguson a no-fly zone, prohibiting news choppers from documenting protests
and police abuses. And in their first official statement since the shooting of
Michael Brown, Ferguson police said citizens should only protest during daylight hours. This implies
that citizens demonstrating after sunset are fair game for repression. The framers of the Constitution never wanted there to be a
sunset clause on the First Amendment…. What’s happening in Ferguson, a suburb of Saint Louis,
Missouri, is just like what’s happened in Anaheim, California, after the
killing of Manuel Diaz by local police. It’s the same thing that happened in
Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighbourhood after the NYPD killed 16-year-old Kimani Gray. And it’s
the same police response that was seen in Oakland, California, and Portland,
Oregon, and many other cities around the country during the heavily-militarized
crackdown on the Occupy Wall Street movement." See article ~ http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25316-ferguson-holds-up-a-mirror-to-our-militarized-police-state
Describing the
conditions that it anticipates will require US military intervention, the
report warns, “As inequality between rich and poor increases … Stagnation
will coexist with unprecedented development, as slums and shanty towns rapidly
expand alongside modern high-rises. This is the urban future. ”Radical
income disparity,” is further described as the foremost “driver of
instability” in these far-flung urban areas.
"In other
words, the Pentagon brass is seeking to prepare the US military for directly counterrevolutionary
interventions aimed at quelling popular revolts that it sees as the inevitable
consequence of the unprecedented social inequality created by world capitalism
in crisis." See WSWS article on same subject ~ http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/14/pers-a14.html
As Carl Gibson
correctly points out ~ "The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 made it clear that military forces are not
allowed to be deployed in civilian neighborhoods for law enforcement purposes.
While the law originally was meant for branches of the U.S. armed forces, it
should also apply to police departments using equipment meant only for U.S.
armed forces in war zones. Because of the 2012 National Defense
Authorization Act, the so-called “War on Terror” included all of
the United States as part of the “battlefield,” making it fair game for Posse
Comitatus to be eliminated. It also allows for the indefinite detention in a
military facility for anyone deemed to be a potential terrorist under
loosely-defined parameters. This sets a dangerous precedent for the future of a
democratic society."
We are now seeing direct evidence of
Mayer's vision of civil
liberties, freedoms and moral values being gradually stripped away by our neo-
fascist government while waving the flag of national security and patriotism ~
and Ferguson may soon be joined by many more
communities unless we make the Demilitarizing
of police forces an election-year issue in all municipalities for candidates
who are running for mayor, city council, alderman, or selectman.
Police officers
shouldn't be breaking down any citizen's door at 3 a.m. armed with AR-15s and
flash bang grenades in search of a small amount of drugs, while an MRAP idles
in the driveway. The anti-militarists, however, are in the minority right now.
And until that changes, violent paramilitary police raids will continue to
break down the doors of nearly 1,000 American households a week: Matthew Harwood / Senior writer/editor at the American
Civil Liberties Union
Allen L Roland
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/ferguson-missouri-this-is-what-martial_15.html
Allen
L Roland is also a lecturer and shares a weekly
political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a
monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
“I love my country, not my government.”
ReplyDelete― Jesse Ventura
Great article, Allen. Sharing.....
ReplyDelete