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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Obma or Anarchy? The politics of prosecuting the "NATO Three" Rahm Emanuel runs Chicago like he ran the Obama White House: with an iron fist and a foul mouth and the NATO summit, being held in the Windy City, is the perfect occasion for him to demonstrate just how tough he can be. Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is its an opportunity to do things you couldnt do before. Thus spake Rahm, during his days as Obama chief consigliere and with the arrest of at least three individuals on the eve of the anti-NATO protests on charges of material support for terrorism, possession of incendiary devices, and conspiracy, we are seeing Rahms credo in practice. The NATO Three, as theyre known on Twitter, are accused of plotting to attack Chicago police stations, the mayors home, and Obamas Chicago election headquarters. Of course, any visible opposition to the militarism draining this country is a crisis for the War Party, whose shaky rule cant tolerate visible protest of any sort. Using all the legal and bureaucratic resources given them by the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security State, Rahm and his friends in the White House are taking the opportunity to boast of how this is the first time state anti-terrorist laws have been used in a prosecution. This is how a phony crisis begets the opportunity for the State to smear its enemies and make more inroads on what is left of our civil liberties. Using a battering ram, Chicago police knocked down the door to an apartment on Chicagos south side, and arrested 9 individuals, ranging in age from early 20s to a 66-year-old pacifist with a heart condition: all but 3 were later released without charges, although not before being held in chains in an interrogation room and denied bathroom facilities. Police claim to have confiscated Molotov cocktails made out of beer bottles and bandanas, as well as beer-making equipment and such weird items as a shield with a pointed edge. It wasnt long before this tall tale began to unravel. Apparently the beer bottles belong to one William Vassilakis, who is reported as sayingIf anyone would like some, I would like to offer them a sip of my beer. This hardly seems like a comment a bomb-throwing anarchist would make, and the real story soon came out, one we are all too familiar with these days: at some point a male and female couple obviously police informants or federal agents turned up after ingratiating themselves with the residents, and it was they who actually brought the materials to make a bomb to the apartment, unbidden. The Chicago Tribunereports: One resident told the Tribune police taunted him and his roommate, repeatedly calling them communists and using anti-gay slurs. Some news reports include the information that a copy of the works of Karl Marx was found on the premises. Its a retro moment, to be sure, complete with bomb-throwing anarchists out of the Haymarket era, but rest assured that our 21st century cops have more tricks up their sleeves than J. Edgar Hoover and Lavrenty Beria combined. From the right-wing Hutaree Militia members to the leftist Occupy group, political dissidents are being systematically targeted by our behemoth-like national security apparatus. As Dana Priest and Michael Arkin reported in their Washington Post series on Top Secret America: Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States
In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings about 17 million square feet of space. Our anti-terrorist Panopticonhas become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive, wrote Priest and Arkin, that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. This vast army of spies, informants, analysts, political appointees, and ambitious prosecutors must somehow justify the blank check theyve been given by our political leaders, and so where there are no threats they must be imagined, invented, and created out of whole cloth. In a perfect illustration of this principle of bureaucratic self-justification, the vast majority of arrests on terrorism charges in the post-9/11 era have been the result of entrapment, in which the terrorists are cajoled, pressured, and relentlessly pursued by informants or infiltrators until they agree to engage in violence. It was inevitable that this bureaucratic imperative would lend itself to domestic political purposes. There have been nineteen arrests in the run up to the Chicago anti-NATO events, in what is clearly an attempt to intimidate and isolate the protesters, but these arrests also serve a broader purpose. Youll note one of the charges is that the conspirators were planning on attacking the Obama campaigns reelection headquarters, a detail that gives the case a distinctly political cast. After all, those evil commie-faggot bomb-throwing anarchists were plotting to blow up Obamas reelection effort! Although the GOP is trying to accomplish this in a purely metaphorical sense, arent those anti-government Republicans kind of like anarchists? Its Obama or Anarchy how about that for framing the presidential campaign! Its just the kind of dirty trick we might expect from a man who once delivered a dead fish to someone who had crossed him. This time, however, the stench of Rahms dirty tricks it was his police department that sent in the infiltrators may be his undoing. The use of infiltrators against a rival political movement is the hallmark of a police state, and as the details of the case come out in court it will become swiftly apparent that the alleged imminent threat was created by the very people who are supposed to be protecting us. This case is emblematic of the new turn the Obamaites are taking: a hard right in preparation for the presidential campaign. The effort could backfire, however, if the less radical occupiers and their millions of sympathizers on the left wing of the Democratic party begin to wake up and realize the Obamaites are their worst enemies. Then again, theres no chance of that happening is there? Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#1. To: Ada (#0)
Mainstream media made this communist/fascist clone (Barry Soetero / Barack Obama) palatable to the dumbed down American people. Anyone that actually "voted" for this bottom-feeding murderer should abstain from ever voting again. De-mob-ocracy has made Amerika into a self-absorbed and gluttonous parasite with the military strength to wreak havoc on humanity in order to satisfy its insatiable appetite for death. A cursory inspection of our current distress makes it all too obvious beyond any doubt that the perps intend to construct a police state capable of total domination by force here in Amerika and everywhere else. If necessary, these scumbags will start the chaos required to implement an open military police state under martial law.
The only campaign promise kept was that to fundamentally re-make Amerika. Very, very well-done, buckwheat.
#3. To: Lod (#2)
Astute observation.
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