4um: Paul Craig Roberts- America Is No More

Title: Paul Craig Roberts- America Is No More
Source: Bella Ciao
URL Source: http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=15707
Published: Sep 23, 2007
Author: Paul Craig Roberts
Post Date: 2007-09-23 00:56:46 by Zipporah
Keywords: None
Views: 272
Comments: 22

America Is No More

By Paul Craig Roberts

09/18/07 "ICH" --- — Naïve Americans who think they live in a free society should watch this video filmed by students at a John Kerry speech September 17, Constitution Day, at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

At the conclusion of Kerry’s speech, Andrew Meyer, a 21-year old journalism student was selected by Senator Kerry to ask a question. Meyer held up a copy of BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast’s book, Armed Madhouse, and asked if Kerry was aware that Palast’s investigations determined that Kerry had actually won the election. Why, Meyer asked, had Kerry conceded the election so quickly when there were so many obvious examples of vote fraud? Why, Meyer, went on to ask, was Kerry refusing to consider Bush’s impeachment when Bush was about to initiate another act of military aggression, this time against Iran?

(watch the video : http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?filmID=601 )

At this point the public’s protectors—the police—decided that Meyer had said too much. They grabbed Meyer and began dragging him off. Meyer said repeatedly, “I have done nothing wrong,” which under our laws he had not. He threatened no one and assaulted no one.

But the police decided that Meyer, an American citizen, had no right to free speech and no constitutional protection. They threw him to the floor and tasered him right in front of Senator Kerry and the large student audience, who captured on video the unquestionable act of police brutality. Meyer was carted off and jailed on a phony charge of “disrupting a public event.”

The question we should all ask is why did a United States Senator just stand there while Gestapo goons violated the constitutional rights of a student participating in a public event, brutalized him in full view of everyone, and then took him off to jail on phony charges?

Kerry’s meekness not only in the face of electoral fraud, not only in the face of Bush’s wars that are crimes under the Nuremberg standard, but also in the face of police goons trampling the constitutional rights of American citizens makes it completely clear that he was not fit to be president, and he is not fit to be a US senator.

Usually when police violate constitutional rights and commit acts of police brutality they do it when they believe no one is watching, not in front of a large audience. Clearly, the police have become more audacious in their abuse of rights and citizens. What explains the new fearlessness of police to violate rights and brutalize citizens without cause?

The answer is that police, most of whom have authoritarian personalities, have seen that constitutional rights are no longer protected. President Bush does not protect our constitutional rights. Neither does Vice President Cheney, nor the Attorney General, nor the US Congress. Just as Kerry allowed Meyer’s rights to be tasered out of him, Congress has enabled Bush to strip people, including American citizens, of constitutional protection and incarcerate them without presenting evidence.

How long before Kerry himself or some other senator will be dragged from his podium and tasered?

The Bush Republicans with complicit Democrats have essentially brought government accountability to an end in the US. The US government has 80,000 people, including ordinary American citizens, on its “no-fly list.” No one knows why they are on the list, and no one on the list can find out how to get off it. An unaccountable act by the Bush administration put them there.

Airport Security harasses and abuses people who do not fit any known definition of terrorist. Nalini Ghuman, a British-born citizen and music professor at Mills College in California was met on her return from a trip to England by armed guards at the airplane door and escorted away. A Gestapo goon squad tore up her US visa, defaced her British passport, body searched her, and told her she could leave immediately for England or be sent to a detention center.

Professor Ghuman, an Oxford University graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, says she feels like the character in Kafka’s book, The Trial. “I don’t know why it’s happened, what I’m accused of. There’s no opportunity to defend myself. One is just completely powerless.” Over one year later there is still no answer.

The Bush Republicans and their Democratic toadies have, in the name of “security,” made all of us powerless. While Senator John Kerry and his Democratic colleagues stand silently, the Bush administration has stolen our country from us and turned us into subjects.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

I experienced a sad family dinner a short time ago. My nephew had invited a high school friend who was of Pakistani extraction as his guest and in conversation about family summer vacations, my nephew's friend natter-of-factly said that he and his family always allow extra time for getting through airport security due to profiling because his mother or father will invariably be pulled aside for closer examination blah, blah and then he put his head down as though he was the one to be ashamed and he cleared his throat and went on with the discussion.

I felt so AWFUL! I felt so ASHAMED for what our nation has become due to the evil despicable racist pigish neocons.I hope they rot in Hell for their crimes against humanity.

I know.. my ex daughter-in-law is Indian.. whenever we'd go thru security ..she was always pulled aside..

I never in my most wild dream ever wouldve believed that we'd come to this in such a very short time..

Don't feel bad. I saw a white, motherly, sharply dressed woman pulled over and given the third degree in Nashville Friday. From the way they treated her, you would have thought she was Osama's wife. We ALL get the treatment. For a while every time I flew I was getting the special attention. I am white, 6 feet tall, USMC tattoos all over me and a high and tight. No slack. Soldiers in uniform get frisked.

Agreed.. what people seem not to understand is that when one person's rights are trampled on.. your rights are at risk.. the RW that goes on and on about the homosexuals getting rights etc.. none of that has little or anything to do with my everyday life... but do you hear them (RW) up in arms about the loss of rights habeas corpus .. the Patriot Act etc etc..? Nope.. we hear crickets chirping..

Mister Clean serves a purpose with his constant reminder that there are many Americans who find the temperature of fascism warm and cozy, and who don't give a damn what the government does to their neighbors, as long as it doesn't pick on them.

I cannot believe so many Americans on both the left and the right can watch the U of Florida video and be most concerned with the kid being an ass. What?!

What do I care if some kid is an asshole at a public assembly at a University, talking to a US senator? Actually I do care. I want that to happen. It's a time honored practice, at least it was back when we remembered that free speech mattered.

This is all about no leadership from the top for 7 years, no leadership in the all important area of actually enforcing the LAW, instead of finding ways to plow under 220 years of American jurisprudence.

Authoritarian governments ALWAYS have to maintain their power via physical force and constant fear.

For this they hire from the masses people that are perfectly willing to do everything they are told to do. It starts out as civil police action in public and ends with a full blown Gestapo or NKVD, people that will resort to murder and torture, "ALL IN THE NAME OF LAW AND ORDER".

I recently traveled both domestically and internationally and had zero problems with airport security.

Worst case scenarios are what intelligent and patriotic freedom lovers remain on the alert for.

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Only the Nazis felt so cocky sure that they would not be left standing alone. But in the end, they were very alone, and hunted down in the course of justice.

Why isn't it true? Previous posters have related stories of people of varying ethnic extractions getting singled out for special attention. These are true, of course. It is also true that people of all kinds get harassed and mistreated.

What about that low level x ray that basically sees through someone's clothes? Don't you think the more attractive women will get singled out for "special attention"? No one can say they are unaffected by this.

I didn't see that x-ray machine either. In Miami Intl. they have a sniffer machine but they weren't even using it.

Like everything else in America, tales of TSA horror are blown out of proportion.

Until it happens to you or someone you care about...it's the American way. Go back to sleep until that happens. Oh, and when it does happen to you, make sure you don't advertise it here, because we'll all laugh at you. Big Government = love, mom and apple pie...as long as it has an (R) next to it.

"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price." Vir Cotto, Babylon 5

I noticed they didn't actually take try to remove the student until he brought up Skull and Bones. Obviously that was their signal to get him. I think Kerry gave then the signal to take him out. Kerry didn't say anything about it because he was the one responsible for him being forcefully removed. It's quite revealing that Kerry didn't give the order until Skull and Bones was mentioned. I think there is a lot we don't know yet about this group.

The low level x ray is something I read about a few months ago. I don't know exactly when it will go into service.

I travel every week for business. It is not the scandalous sensation of it. It is standing in line like a sheep, waiting your turn to be inspected, all the while hearing the intercom woman say if you interfere in any way, make jokes or harass the screeners you will be arrested. Harassing and interfering would include asking questions, like why are you doing this? and I demand my rights.

Like your personal experience should weigh in as being the final unequivocal last judgement on the situation.

I flew through Chicago and through JFK the past month, and at Chicago I saw the TSA goons patting down and pulling apart the carry on luggage of a white haired Caucasian senior citizen female much to the chagrin of her middle aged daughter. At JFK I forgot to take off my belt and a lesbo TSA agent ( she had to be to get such a grip) immediately jumped on my boobs and patted me down. So take your Pollyanna everything is coming up roses and shove it up your gubment shill paid fat butt.

You have a better idea for airline security given the large numbers of people who fly each day?

My personal experience is enough for me to say that not everyone is harassed at airline security checkpoints as the poster asserted.