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Are we becoming a police state?


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2015 Apr 24, 5:46pm   43,359 views  131 comments

by indigenous   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

Battlefield America: The War on the American People
By John W. Whitehead
April 22, 2015
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“A government which will turn its tanks upon its people, for any reason, is a government with a taste of blood and a thirst for power and must either be smartly rebuked, or blindly obeyed in deadly fear.”—John Salter

We have entered into a particularly dismal chapter in the American narrative, one that shifts us from a swashbuckling tale of adventure into a bone-chilling horror story.

As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, “we the people” have now come full circle, from being held captive by the British police state to being held captive by the American police state. In between, we have charted a course from revolutionaries fighting for our independence and a free people establishing a new nation to pioneers and explorers, braving the wilderness and expanding into new territories.
Where we went wrong, however, was in allowing ourselves to become enthralled with and then held hostage by a military empire in bondage to a corporate state (the very definition of fascism). No longer would America hold the moral high ground as a champion of freedom and human rights. Instead, in the pursuit of profit, our overlords succumbed to greed, took pleasure in inflicting pain, exported torture, and imported the machinery of war, transforming the American landscape into a battlefield, complete with military personnel, tactics and weaponry.

To our dismay, we now find ourselves scrambling for a foothold as our once rock-solid constitutional foundation crumbles beneath us. And no longer can we rely on the president, Congress, the courts, or the police to protect us from wrongdoing.

Indeed, they have come to embody all that is wrong with America.

For instance, how does a man who is relatively healthy when taken into custody by police lapse into a coma and die while under their supervision? What kind of twisted logic allows a police officer to use a police car to run down an American citizen and justifies it in the name of permissible deadly force? And what country are we living in where the police can beat, shoot, choke, taser and tackle American citizens, all with the protection of the courts?

Certainly, the Constitution’s safeguards against police abuse means nothing when government agents can crash through your door, terrorize your children, shoot your dogs, and jail you on any number of trumped of charges, and you have little say in the matter. For instance, San Diego police, responding to a domestic disturbance call on a Sunday morning, showed up at the wrong address, only to shoot the homeowner’s 6-year-old service dog in the head.

Rubbing salt in the wound, it’s often the unlucky victim of excessive police force who ends up being charged with wrongdoing. Although 16-year-old Thai Gurule was charged with resisting arrest and strangling and assaulting police officers, a circuit judge found that it was actually the three officers who unlawfully stopped, tackled, punched, kneed, tasered and yanked his hair who were at fault. Thankfully, bystander cell phone videos undermined police accounts, which were described as “works of fiction.”
Not even our children are being spared the blowback from a growing police presence. As one juvenile court judge noted in testimony to Congress, although having police on public school campuses did not make the schools any safer, it did result in large numbers of students being arrested for misdemeanors such as school fights and disorderly conduct. One 11-year-old autistic Virginia student was charged with disorderly conduct and felony assault after kicking a trashcan and resisting a police officer’s attempt to handcuff him. A 14-year-old student was tasered by police, suspended and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and trespassing after he failed to obey a teacher’s order to be the last student to exit the classroom.

There is no end to the government’s unmitigated gall in riding roughshod over the rights of the citizenry, whether in matters of excessive police powers, militarized police, domestic training drills, SWAT team raids, surveillance, property rights, overcriminalization, roadside strip searches, profit-driven fines and prison sentences, etc.

The president can now direct the military to detain, arrest and secretly execute American citizens. These are the powers of an imperial dictator, not an elected official bound by the rule of law. For the time being, Barack Obama wears the executioner’s robe, but you can rest assured that this mantle will be worn by whomever occupies the Oval Office in the future.

A representative government means nothing when the average citizen has little to no access to their elected officials, while corporate lobbyists enjoy a revolving door relationship with everyone from the President on down. Indeed, while members of Congress hardly work for the taxpayer, they work hard at being wooed by corporations, which spend more to lobby our elected representatives than we spend on their collective salaries. For that matter, getting elected is no longer the high point it used to be. As one congressman noted, for many elected officials, “Congress is no longer a destination but a journey… [to a] more lucrative job as a K Street lobbyist… It’s become routine to see members of Congress drop their seat in Congress like a hot rock when a particularly lush vacancy opens up.”

As for the courts, they have long since ceased being courts of justice. Instead, they have become courts of order, largely marching in lockstep with the government’s dictates, all the while helping to increase the largesse of government coffers. It’s called for-profit justice, and it runs the gamut of all manner of financial incentives in which the courts become cash cows for communities looking to make an extra buck. As journalist Chris Albin-Lackey details, “They deploy a crushing array of fines, court costs, and other fees to harvest revenues from minor offenders that these communities cannot or do not want to raise through taxation.” In this way, says Albin-Lackey, “A resident of Montgomery, Alabama who commits a simple noise violation faces only a $20 fine—but also a whopping $257 in court costs and user fees should they seek to have their day in court.”

As for the rest—the schools, the churches, private businesses, service providers, nonprofits and your fellow citizens—many are also marching in lockstep with the police state. This is what is commonly referred to as community policing. After all, the police can’t be everywhere. So how do you police a nation when your population outnumbers your army of soldiers? How do you carry out surveillance on a nation when there aren’t enough cameras, let alone viewers, to monitor every square inch of the country 24/7? How do you not only track but analyze the transactions, interactions and movements of every person within the United States? The answer is simpler than it seems: You persuade the citizenry to be your eyes and ears.

It’s a brilliant ploy, with the added bonus that while the citizenry remains focused on and distrustful of each other, they’re incapable of focusing on more definable threats that fall closer to home—namely, the government and its militarized police. In this way, we’re seeing a rise in the incidence of Americans being reported for growing vegetables in their front yard, keeping chickens in their back yard, letting their kids walk to the playground alone, and voicing anti-government sentiments. For example, after Shona Banda’s son defended the use of medical marijuana during a presentation at school, school officials alerted the police and social services, and the 11-year-old was interrogated, taken into custody by social workers, had his home raided by police and his mother arrested.

Now it may be that we have nothing to worry about. Perhaps the government really does have our best interests at heart. Perhaps covert domestic military training drills such as Jade Helm really are just benign exercises to make sure our military is prepared for any contingency. As the Washington Post describes the operation:

The mission is vast both geographically and strategically: Elite service members from all four branches of the U.S. military will launch an operation this summer in which they will operate covertly among the U.S. public and travel from state to state in military aircraft. Texas, Utah and a section of southern California are labeled as hostile territory, and New Mexico isn’t much friendlier.

Now I don’t believe in worrying over nothing, but it’s safe to say that the government has not exactly shown itself to be friendly in recent years, nor have its agents shown themselves to be cognizant of the fact that they are civilians who answer to the citizenry, rather than the other way around.

Whether or not the government plans to impose some form of martial law in the future remains to be seen, but there can be no denying that we’re being accustomed to life in a military state. The malls may be open for business, the baseball stadiums may be packed, and the news anchors may be twittering nonsense about the latest celebrity foofa, but those are just distractions from what is really taking place: the transformation of America into a war zone.

Trust me, if it looks like a battlefield (armored tanks on the streets, militarized police in metro stations, surveillance cameras everywhere), sounds like a battlefield (SWAT team raids nightly, sound cannons to break up large assemblies of citizens), and acts like a battlefield (police shooting first and asking questions later, intimidation tactics, and involuntary detentions), it’s a battlefield.

Indeed, what happened in Ocala, Florida, is a good metaphor for what’s happening across the country: Sheriff’s deputies, dressed in special ops uniforms and riding in an armored tank on a public road, pulled a 23-year-old man over and issued a warning violation to him after he gave them the finger. The man, Lucas Jewell, defended his actions as a free speech expression of his distaste for militarized police.

Translation: “We the people” are being hijacked on the highway by government agents with little knowledge of or regard for the Constitution, who are hyped up on the power of their badge, outfitted for war, eager for combat, and taking a joy ride—on taxpayer time and money—in a military tank that has no business being on American soil.

Rest assured, unless we slam on the brakes, this runaway tank will soon be charting a new course through terrain that bears no resemblance to land of our forefathers, where freedom meant more than just the freedom to exist and consume what the corporate powers dish out.

Rod Serling, one of my longtime heroes and the creator of The Twilight Zone, understood all too well the danger of turning a blind eye to evil in our midst, the “things that scream for a response.” As Serling warned, “if we don’t listen to that scream – and if we don’t respond to it – we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us – or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name.”

If you haven’t managed to read the writing on the wall yet, the war has begun.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/john-w-whitehead/battlefield-america-2/

#politics

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14   indigenous   2015 Apr 24, 9:06pm  

Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939. Incredulous though it may seem today, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, an E.G.C. Brandt. Apparently though, Brandt never intended the nomination to be taken seriously. Brandt was to all intents and purposes a dedicated antifascist, and had intended this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate in Sweden. (At the time, a number of Swedish parliamentarians had nominated then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination which Brandt viewed with great skepticism. ) However, Brandt's satirical intentions were not well received at all and the nomination was swiftly withdrawn in a letter dated 1 February 1939.

15   indigenous   2015 Apr 24, 9:07pm  

Strategist says

We are more educated than the Germans a hundred years ago.

Are you evidence of this?

16   Strategist   2015 Apr 24, 9:17pm  

indigenous says

Strategist says

We are more educated than the Germans a hundred years ago.

Are you evidence of this?

Ja, Herr Indigenous.

17   Bigsby   2015 Apr 24, 9:17pm  

indigenous says

Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939. Incredulous though it may seem today, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, an E.G.C. Brandt. Apparently though, Brandt never intended the nomination to be taken seriously. Brandt was to all intents and purposes a dedicated antifascist, and had intended this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate in Sweden. (At the time, a number of Swedish parliamentarians had nominated then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination which Brandt viewed with great skepticism. ) However, Brandt's satirical intentions were not well received at all and the nomination was swiftly withdrawn in a letter dated 1 February 1939.

So you've actually gone and checked under what circumstances he was nominated after making your initial comment. Do you not think it would have been better to do that first? And so what if Hitler was named man of the year in 1938. It wasn't a decision based on how nice a person he was, or all the humanitarian work he had done, was it?

18   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Apr 24, 9:28pm  

Strategist says

You are kidding us, right?

He's telling a half-truth. Yes, Time named Hitler Greatest Man of the Year. But read the article for yourself - you'll see it's hardly celebratory:

Führer of the German people, Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Navy & Air Force, Chancellor of the Third Reich, Herr Hitler reaped on that day at Munich the harvest of an audacious, defiant, ruthless foreign policy he had pursued for five and a half years. He had torn the Treaty of Versailles to shreds. He had rearmed Germany to the teeth— or as close to the teeth as he was able. He had stolen Austria before the eyes of a horrified and apparently impotent world.

All these events were shocking to nations which had defeated Germany on the battlefield only 20 years before, but nothing so terrified the world as the ruthless, methodical, Nazi-directed events which during late summer and early autumn threatened a world war over Czechoslovakia. When without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German puppet state, forced a drastic revision of Europe's defensive alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe by getting a "hands-off" promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf Hitler without doubt became 1938's Man of the Year.

...
But the figure of Adolf Hitler strode over a cringing Europe with all the swagger of a conqueror. Not the mere fact that the Führer brought 10,500,000 more people (7,000,000 Austrians, 3,500,000 Sudetens) under his absolute rule made him the Man of 1938. Japan during the same time added tens of millions of Chinese to her empire. More significant was the fact Hitler became in 1938 the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today.

The horse's mouth:
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539,00.html

Time goes on to mock the appeasement policies of Liberal (in the Classical sense, not American sense) Chamberlain and French Liberal (again) Daladier, and explain why they gave Hitler the prize - he was victorious, got what he wanted. Whereas Chiang Kai-Shek, Benes (PM of Czechoslovakia), Franco, and Mussolini did not.

But in fairness, maybe indigenous got it from his unimpeachable von Mises sources and as True Believer, did not investigate extraordinary claims. Which reminds me:

19   Strategist   2015 Apr 24, 9:28pm  

Bigsby says

So you've actually gone and checked under what circumstances he was nominated after making your initial comment. Do you not think it would have been better to do that first? And so what if Hitler was named man of the year in 1938. It wasn't a decision based on how nice a person he was, or all the humanitarian work he had done, was it?

Now I remember. You are right Bigs, they even wanted to name Osama Bin Laden man of the year. The title is based on the most influential, not the nicest person around.
Hitler, and Osama should get that title, as those Mo*&%$#**&*** were the most influential.

20   indigenous   2015 Apr 24, 9:30pm  

Bigsby says

So you've actually gone and checked under what circumstances he was nominated after making your initial comment.

I posted the above, I don't care it is trivial, similiar to O's award don't you think?

Bigsby says

And so what if Hitler was named man of the year in 1938. It wasn't a decision based on how nice a person he was, or all the humanitarian work he had done, was it?

Maybe that says something about Time Magazine? Either way if they gave credence to Hitler in any way I have to have a jaundiced look at the leaders of this country.

21   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Apr 24, 9:34pm  

indigenous says

Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939. Incredulous though it may seem today, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, an E.G.C. Brandt. Apparently though, Brandt never intended the nomination to be taken seriously. Brandt was to all intents and purposes a dedicated antifascist, and had intended this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate in Sweden. (At the time, a number of Swedish parliamentarians had nominated then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination which Brandt viewed with great skepticism. ) However, Brandt's satirical intentions were not well received at all and the nomination was swiftly withdrawn in a letter dated 1 February 1939.

Good to see you are capable of context sometimes. I salute you.

Of course, any schmuck can be nominated for the Peace Prize by just about anyone.

22   indigenous   2015 Apr 24, 9:38pm  

thunderlips11 says

this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate

Was this the case with O? Or is Time Magazine just another fucked up libby rag?

23   Bigsby   2015 Apr 24, 9:42pm  

indigenous says

I posted the above, I don't care it is trivial, similiar to O's award don't you think?

Your initial post was done without checking. And Obama's Nobel was ridiculous, but no, they weren't similar.

indigenous says

Maybe that says something about Time Magazine? Either way if they gave credence to Hitler in any way I have to have a jaundiced look at the leaders of this country.

You do know how they decide it, don't you?

24   indigenous   2015 Apr 24, 9:49pm  

Bigsby says

Your initial post was done without checking.

It was, the author brought it up on the podcast to illustrate Americans ignorance. Maybe he didn't check it either? but the point is still the same if Time Magazine states someone is the person of the year yet is as evil as Hitler or Stalin, I have to take a hard look at Time Magazine.

25   Bigsby   2015 Apr 24, 9:55pm  

indigenous says

but the point is still the same if Time Magazine states someone is the person of the year yet is as evil as Hitler or Stalin, I have to take a hard look at Time Magazine.

You just don't get it, do you? You don't need to take a hard look at Time magazine. You need to take a hard look at yourself, and think why you jump to the conclusions you do without even doing a modicum of checking. Time magazine makes its decisions based on who they thought had the greatest impact on the news. It's not an issue of those people being good. Hence why Stalin was chosen a couple of times and also Ayatollah Khomeini. Who had a bigger impact on events in 1938 than Adolf Hitler?

26   HEY YOU   2015 Apr 24, 10:18pm  

What's worse than Hitler?

Democratic & Republican voters.

27   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 6:27am  

Bigsby says

You just don't get it, do you?

Back at ya, why the fuck does Time magazine make either of these demons the person of the year? I hear what you are saying, but this speaks to the fascism of this country making anything out of these complete pieces of shit. Why because this country needs an enemy.

At the risk of going all Gary on you, Prescott Bush was found guilty in a US court of law of financing the enemy (Hitler) in WW2. I.E. no theory, just conspiracy fact. World history is a charade and Time magazine is instrumental in spreading the disinformation so the mutts stay quiet.

28   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 6:36am  

indigenous says

Back at ya, why the fuck does Time magazine make either of these demons the person of the year? I hear what you are saying, but this speaks to the fascism of this country making anything out of these complete pieces of shit. Why because this country needs an enemy.

I already explained to you why the magazine picked him, but as usual you refuse to accept the obvious as it doesn't fit your narrative, and instead you make a feeble attempt to try and twist the actual reasons he was picked to fit your bit of fiction.

29   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 6:42am  

Bigsby says

I already explained to you why the magazine picked him, but as usual you refuse to accept the obvious as it doesn't fit your narrative, and instead you make a feeble attempt to try and twist the actual reasons he was picked to fit your bit of fiction.

You are not hearing me, I hear what you are saying, and you are wrong,

30   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 6:47am  

indigenous says

You are not hearing me, I hear what you are saying, and you are wrong

No, I'm not. You, yourself, have already shown that you were mistaken about the Nobel comment, and you clearly didn't know the basis for how Time magazine picked its man of the year.

31   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 6:58am  

Bigsby says

No, I'm not. You, yourself, have already shown that you were mistaken about the Nobel comment, and you clearly didn't know the basis for how Time magazine picked its man of the year.

There is only room for one Wogster on this site.

I'm saying I don't give a fuck whether I'm right or wrong about the apparent motivation of the Time magazine award, I'm saying this is just a propaganda tool for the the fascism of this country. I'm saying why do we have a plethora of comments about Jenner's sex change and a dearth about the destruction of the US???

I will post another article below that further indicates the magnitude of this problem.

32   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 7:19am  

indigenous says

I'm saying I don't give a fuck whether I'm right or wrong about the apparent motivation of the Time magazine award, I'm saying this is just a propaganda tool for the the fascism of this country.

Good grief, the Time magazine article wasn't promoting fascism, was it? So how exactly can that be used as an example supporting your argument?

33   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 7:21am  

Bigsby says

the Time magazine article wasn't promoting fascism, was it?

What is the definition of Fascism?

34   CL   2015 Apr 25, 7:46am  

indigenous says

the case with O? Or is Time Magazine just another fucked up libby rag?

Time has always been a conservative rag, I believe. Weren't the Luces hard core?

35   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 7:50am  

CL says

Time has always been a conservative rag, I believe. Weren't the Luces hard core?

Splain me

36   Y   2015 Apr 25, 7:58am  

because this is predominantly a libby site....duhhhh...

indigenous says

I'm saying why do we have a plethora of comments about Jenner's sex change and a dearth about the destruction of the US???

37   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 8:03am  

SoftShell says

because this is predominantly a libby site....duhhhh...

The voice of reason, thanks.

38   Strategist   2015 Apr 25, 8:43am  

Call it Crazy says

thunderlips11 says

Of course, any schmuck can be nominated for the Peace Prize by just about anyone.

Yep, and even win it after a handful of months in office..... Go figure...

*



*

Kinda of tarnishes the prize by setting such a low bar to be a winner...

The Peace and Literature Nobel Prize is motivated by politics.

39   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 8:49am  

What should I reconsider? There more than nascent police state?

You apparently are taking me for a Limbaugh fan? Not the case, never heard of the Rutherford institute?

BTW smart guy what are the 5 freedoms of the 1st ammendment?

40   Strategist   2015 Apr 25, 8:51am  

Call it Crazy says

anonymous says

Strategist says

The Peace and Literature Nobel Prize is motivated by politics.

You weren't supposed to make that part known...you're ruining the attacks.

Let's give one to EVERY Community Organizer!! When does Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson get theirs?

They get the Oscars for "Best Bullshit"

41   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 8:55am  

indigenous says

Bigsby says

the Time magazine article wasn't promoting fascism, was it?

What is the definition of Fascism?

Perhaps you'd like to explain the relevance of that question.

42   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:13am  

Bigsby says

Perhaps you'd like to explain the relevance of that question.

First answer the question.

43   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:17am  

anonymous says

If you never hear of the Rutherford Institute, obviously you didn't read far enough down your post then did you? "Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead [send him mail] is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute." Not very hard to miss.

Yea I missed a foot note, so what.

Conflating him with Limbaugh is a stretch, don't you think?

44   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:21am  

thunderlips11 says

What is the definition of Fascism?

45   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 9:22am  

indigenous says

Bigsby says

Perhaps you'd like to explain the relevance of that question.

First answer the question.

Why? What relevance has that question got to do with what I posted? You're just playing stupid buggers as usual.

46   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:23am  

Bigsby says

Why? What relevance has that question got to do with what I posted? You're just playing stupid buggers as usual.

Answer the question.

47   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 9:25am  

indigenous says

Bigsby says

Why? What relevance has that question got to do with what I posted? You're just playing stupid buggers as usual.

Answer the question.

No. Whatever definition you choose to post up is irrelevant to the failed point you were trying to make. You were wrong. Now you are just playing a stupid game in an attempt to squirm out of your idiocy.

48   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:34am  

Bigsby says

No. Whatever definition you choose to post up is irrelevant to the failed point you were trying to make. You were wrong. Now you are just playing a stupid game in an attempt to squirm out of your idiocy.

BULLSHIT the post is NOT about the Time mag award.

49   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 9:43am  

indigenous says

BULLSHIT the post is NOT about the Time mag award.

Good grief. Are you really that much of a prick? It's a thread. People make various points and people respond to those. YOU brought up Time magazine. You made a comment in the thread that was factually incorrect and that was what I commented on. If you want to go back to the original comment, then don't attach a question to a comment that is unconnected to your attempt to redirect the thread away from your obvious idiocy.

50   HydroCabron   2015 Apr 25, 9:44am  

Why did you even post this? Police states are not 1% as bad as ZIRP and fiddling with the discount window.

Debasing a currency is worse than extinguishing millions of species. Everyone knows that!

51   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:45am  

Bigsby says

You made a comment in the thread that was factually incorrect and that was what I commented on.

It is correct regarding fascism, but you won't answer that question...

52   indigenous   2015 Apr 25, 9:48am  

HydroCabron says

Police states are not 1% as bad as ZIRP and fiddling with the discount window.

They are neck and neck

53   Bigsby   2015 Apr 25, 9:49am  

indigenous says

It is correct regarding fascism, but you won't answer that question...

Your stupid little comment about the Nobel prize and the Time magazine choice of Hitler has fuck all to do with anything except your habit of copying and pasting any shit you hear (that lines up with your biases) without checking the veracity of the point(s) made.

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