When They Took the Jews, I Remained Silent …

January 2, 2005

I know that not many of you are around these days with the holidays, and I intended to wait a little bit before posting again, but this is just too fucking outrageous:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

We already had an inkling a few weeks back when the concept of "unarmed sleeper cells" was used to describe civilians in Fallujah.

When they killed civilians in Fallujah, I did not speak up, because I am not a Fallujahn
When they decided to indefinitely detain Gitmo prisoners, against the rules of the Supreme Court, I did not complain, because I am not in Gitmo…
etc…

Who’s next, until it’s our turn (and still nobody complains)?

Posted by on January 2, 2005 at 09:28 UTC | Permalink

Comments

As long as there remains so much red in these maps I hold out little hope that the headlong rush to complete and irreversible totalitarianism can be stopped or even slowed.
I do believe I have become completely disillusioned.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 2 2005 9:46 utc | 1

From the WaPo article

“Renditions are the most effective way to hold people,” said Rohan Gunaratna, author of “Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.” “The threat of sending someone to one of these countries is very important. In Europe, the custodial interrogations have yielded almost nothing” because they do not use the threat of sending detainees to a country where they are likely to be tortured.

That “expert” has been discredited some time ago.
WaPo is printing this as the last paragraph:
“In Europe, the custodial interrogations have yielded almost nothing”
What have the torturing and interogations in Gitmo and elsewhere yielded? As far as known – nothing. But WaPo doesn´t ask such questions.

Posted by: b | Jan 2 2005 10:39 utc | 2

They don’t call the Post Pravda on the Potomac for nothing, B.
Old POP always fails to ask the right questions.
It’s performance over the last 4 years has been outrageous.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Jan 2 2005 11:09 utc | 3

The main hope I see for the US is not the left/right red states/blue states divide but in the largest voting block – the non voting block.
When these people really start to feel the effects of Bush’s policies, both domestic and forgien and the difference it makes to their self interests – that’s when the shit hits the fan for Bush baby.
Roll on the rise in interest rates, rise in the price of gas, rise in the price of everything, suddenly you’ll find that the Republicans will become a very small minority.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 2 2005 12:23 utc | 4

The whole problem is the sheeple have been lulled to sleep. With the US consumer society, people have all the cheap bullshit to keep them happy. All of the fast food, obesity is one of the US main problems.
So it comes down to this: I have never seen a fat happy revolutionary.
As stated above, until this country gets really bad, I don’t believe anyone is going to do anything. And as long as the red states are listening to the Jerry Falwells and James Dobsons of the world, well, like sheep lead to the slaughter they will follow those idiots.
Oh yah, happy new year and keep up the good fight. Bernhard and Jerome, I appreciate both of your work on this site.

Posted by: jdp | Jan 2 2005 13:33 utc | 5

This is very, very bad.

Posted by: mistah charley | Jan 2 2005 16:43 utc | 6

dems in transition
i think its more a matter of the transformation of the dem party and the division between factions on the left. reminds me of colemans ny eve posting. i don’t think it’s as simple as americans being fat and apathetic. we will see what happens here in the next couple of months w/ the reorganization and if Dean is able to secure the chairmanship. if not, i think we are going to be seeing a lot of progressives abandoning the party. frankly i’m getting pretty sick of the “moderate” dems speaking for us. i also believe that there was more fraud in the election than our media lets on, and albeit the country is divided i don’t believe this election wasn’t stolen. otherwise they would have had no problem agreeing to a hand recount in Ohio(as opposed to not allowing a random selection of the precincts and w/out the ‘reprogramming’ of the machines prior to the 3%). until we have election reform there is no way we are ever getting the republicans out unless we have a revolution. voting on paperless machines owned by a few rightwing nutjobs will never produce a dem win.

Posted by: annie | Jan 2 2005 19:29 utc | 7

jérôme
i am surprised that you are surprised. as i hade sd repeatedly the destruction of both the legislative & judicial appareil in america has gone far beyond what a joe mccarty or a roy cohn could have conceived
they have been effective inusing the judiciary & the business of incarceration to keep people quiet for some time now. there are generations of people in the biggest jails on earth who do not belong there – they are there for the most part – in relation to property crimes & to criminal consipiracies & a corrupt jurisprudence that has tried to destroy the resistant heart of that country
all criminals are not political but all crime is political in one sense or another
the evil of this process is now becomin apparent for the world to see & you are right to cite pastor niemoller because it is a judicial process with very much in common with its nazi inheritance
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 2 2005 19:52 utc | 8

The New York Republican Party uses its majority in the State Senate to maintain political power through fat years and lean. The Senate
The group’s researchers have found 21 counties nationally where at least 21 percent of the “residents’ were inmates.
“Republicans, in turn, rely on their large upstate delegation to keep that majority. Whether those legislators have consciously made the connection or not, it’s hard to escape the fact that bulging prisons are good for their districts. The advantages extend beyond jobs and political gerrymandering. By counting unemployed inmates as residents, the prison counties lower their per capita incomes – and increase the portion they get of federal funds for the poor. This results in a transfer of federal cash from places that can’t afford to lose it to places that don’t deserve it.”
more on the dem split from today’s la times

Posted by: annie | Jan 2 2005 20:22 utc | 9

for those of you who don’t want to register @lat here’s the gist
“But it inspired a firm response from MoveOn, whose two founders wrote in the most recent New Republic that Beinart was proposing “a wholesale embrace of the neoconservative ideology.”
With Iraq still in turmoil, both liberals and centrists believe this fight over foreign policy could be even more divisive for Democrats in 2005 than the disputes over economic policy and populism.
“What Beinart is saying is we need to purge from the party the people who got the war in Iraq right,” charged Borosage, of the Campaign for America’s Future. “That is not going to happen, but the [attempt] to make it happen, which the [Democratic Leadership Council] has now embraced, will be a brutal fight.”
i say lets more over to the left and then see if the centurists jump ship. frankly , i doubt they will, not w/ the unpopular war.

Posted by: annie | Jan 2 2005 20:29 utc | 10

Is anyone really surprised by this WaPo report. The path that Bush and his myrmidons chose has no sustainable logic or basis in law. It must inevitably spiral downward to barbaric absurdity and ever-tightening paranoid repression.
This has been done by burning through the surplus wealth and dubious prestige of the US. Additional resources have been strong-armed and stolen. Get ready for the really ugly shit that now that the money is gone and the gloves come off. Plundering Social Security will be the least of it. The new Wehrmacht will need many new rules.

Posted by: biklett | Jan 2 2005 20:48 utc | 11

Annie,
I hate to lay it on you, but the DLC is nothing more than democratic fat cats who are more than willing to take second in elections for a while because their agenda is somewhat the repug agenda.
There isn’t a dimes worth of deference between the two parties in many instances. They both cater to fat cats. Thats how they get elected. Remember, it was Bill Clinton (a dlc founder) who passed the Bush negotiated Nafta. The dlc people go to the same foriegn policy meetings at the CFR and Tri-lat commission as the repugs do.
The progressive movement has never been on elites agendas because it was born out of the Grange movement from the late 1800s and the east coast elites always thought they were rable because they wanted reasonable rates for shipping, easier money, free silver, etc. The midwestern and western states at that time and through the early 1900s could push the progressive agenda. But as the southern states have become more populous and the power is moving into the old south, Repugs are using the old south states rights agenda to push their agenda, which is the monied class agenda, of which the dlc has bought into because it takes so much money to get elected. That was a mouthfull.
Again, you keep the peasants happy while your stealing their cloths. I do believe Americans have their heads in the sand. Over on CounterPunch there is a good article about religion being about wanting strong rulers and the “strong leader” to rally them against the supposed enemies. People want a sheep herder, not a democratic leader in this country. Having to make decisions through the democratic process involves thinking. People want someone to do the thinking for them.
I’ll quit ranting now.

Posted by: jdp | Jan 2 2005 21:07 utc | 12

again, what is worse: they do not know what they are doing OR they know exactly what they are doing? paranoia or planning?

Posted by: teuton | Jan 2 2005 21:10 utc | 13

Imagine if Bush — instead of Eisenhower — had supervised D-Day
I’m laughing so hard as I write this, I don’t even know where to start! I’m sorry but it IS funny. Can you even BEGIN to imagine Dubya ever replacing Ike?
First, let’s go back to before World War II even started (This part is NOT funny): Like Rumsfeld selling missiles to Saddam Hussein, Bush would have kept Hitler supplied with American-made WMDs for over a decade before even Dunkirk.
Like when North Korea BROADCAST far and wide that it had nuclear capabilities and knew how to use them but Bush invaded Iraq instead, our Dubya would have forgotten about Germany and invaded Argentina! “Hey, we need their beef.”
“Hitler, is our target, boy,” General Eisenhower told him. “H-I-T-L-E-R.” But you couldn’t tell GWB anything. Instead of Dresden, he fire-bombed New York City.
“Okay, okay.” Ike drew a really BIG map with a big X on Normandy. “You pronounce this place EU-ROPE,” he told young George.
“I knew that. Karl Rove told me.”
FINALLY, George bombed the hell out of Omaha Beach. But then he got bad information from the CIA, forgot to chase the Nazis and started killing off the French. “Hey, they looked like terrorists to me!” After 50,000 French women were blown up, however, the GIs mutinied.
“Ike, the soldiers hate me,” Bush whined. “They wanna fight Nazis — not the French Resistance. They’re all mad because we blew up Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.”
How did the D-Day invasion finally turn out? Guess.
Due to voting machine glitches, George Bush was still “Commander in Chief” 50 years later and US troops were still fighting in France. They never even got to Germany.
A good blogger

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 2 2005 21:41 utc | 14

jdp
ok, locally(seattle) the progressive dems are pulling the weight here. otherwise gregoire would not have been on the brink.
Gregoire should not expect a honeymoon. And if she’s smart she’ll be consulting with, not alienating, those who defended her right to be governor,” said Bill Moyer, founder of the Backbone Campaign, a liberal group based here that has been pushing the state and national Democratic Party to the left.
Party officials acknowledge the debt.
“We couldn’t have done it without liberals from throughout the country,” said state Democratic Party Chairman
she ignored us and counted on our support in the elections and she didn’t get that support til she was on her knees. the progressive dems run the party in this state on a local level. i just went to the dem reorg meeting in my district and the progressives made a clean sweep for every office. we already have our eyes on cantwell who cowtowed and voted for the war. if dean can pull off the chairmanship of the party i think we will see a change. otherwise i would have to say i agree w/ you about the dlc.

Posted by: annie | Jan 2 2005 21:47 utc | 15

Annie,
I think it’s great that the progressives are pushing the agenda there. I want a progressive economic agenda on the federal level. Thats the whole problem though is the DLC aren’t progressive on economics. The DLC needs to be wiped off the dem political scene. Clinton gave way to supply side policies during his presidency, not pushing the progressive economic agenda. The whole probleem right now is the failer to tax the elites and pay for the needs of masses. Clinton with the repugs have attacked the middle class on many fronts. First, with trade agreements that has laid waste to manufacturing jobs that moved people to the middle class. Second, he allowed consolidation of media that has limited news sources and investigative reporting. Third, he sat back and watched the middle class be taxed heavily to pay for infrastructure, SS taxes and tax cuts for the rich through munipulation of th tax code.
And worst of all he let little Dicky Morris tell him to move to right. I dispise the DLC for the economic havoc done to this country. Like in your situation, it will be the grass roots in the states that take the Dem party back to being the party of FDR.

Posted by: jdp | Jan 2 2005 22:04 utc | 16

Kurt Nimmo has to say on this also. ‘When They Took the Jews’ also seems ironic in this context.
Even if you do not concur with Kurt Nimmo’s world view, the question of Likudite and/or Zionist influence in America is never/seldom seriously discussed in mainstream media or even on MOA. I don’t see this happening anytime soon, so things will get a lot worse before they get better.
Wake me up when the treason trials start.

Posted by: DM | Jan 2 2005 23:44 utc | 17

Reports from Iraq.
The DLC supports failure because they, and the rest of the powers that be, are either too afraid to admit the truth of Bush’s total failure in Iraq, or they refuse to believe it because they’re as full of shit as he is.
either way, the Democratic party now, just like the Democratic party during Vietnam, will not be the ones who fix the problems of an illegal and unnecessary invasion.
the only way this mess will end is if Americans wise up and get out in the streets to protest…more than the numbers that have shown up thus far.
since the press is in bed with the power brokers sending soldiers off to kill and be killed unnecessarily, there will still be many who deny this reality, long after the U.S. leaves.
you’d think a nation this rich wouldn’t be this stupid.
I gave up on the politicians back in November. I went along, hoping against hope that things could change, but they didn’t…or they did, but for the worse.
The Democratic party has made itself irrelevant, and will continue to do so as long as it gets on its knees and sucks on George’s war dick and calls this a winning strategy.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jan 3 2005 2:55 utc | 18

From Juan Cole …
and Mr. Pipes will come to have reason to regret his imprudence
… is this too subtle?

Posted by: DM | Jan 3 2005 3:14 utc | 19

@Faux:
You got it right!
@DM:
Pipes ought to be able to be elected chairman of the DLC with that one!

Posted by: FlashHarry | Jan 3 2005 3:59 utc | 20

i am surprised that you are surprised. as i hade sd repeatedly the destruction of both the legislative & judicial appareil in america has gone far beyond what a joe mccarty or a roy cohn could have conceived
rememberinggiap, you’re absolutely correct. I used to rail about this at Whiskey Bar and I think I was thought to be something of an alarmist. I’m sorry to find that I wasn’t, and it’s probably going to be worse than I thought.
They’ll start with gays. Next they’ll come for obvious leftists, and finally they’ll move on to anyone who doesn’t toe the party line.
All totaliarian regimes have to manufacture an “enemy” to blame for their failures. It’s been going on since history has been recorded. Eliminationist rhetoric isn’t just common here now, it doesn’t even raise eyebrows.
We’re in for a bumpy ride.

Posted by: fourlegsgood | Jan 3 2005 4:43 utc | 21

“Annie,
I think it’s great that the progressives are pushing the agenda there. I want a progressive economic agenda on the federal level. …JDP”
If either of you think Howard Dean is for a progressive economic agenda, I’ve just discovered that Soros backed Dean. Google up the 2 of them.
………But it was a nice hope….In short, we’re completely screwed no matter who takes over the xDem. Party….if you’ll pardon the gloom…..If it’s online, check out the Business Week introduction of Dean to their readers in July-Aug ’03. They thght. he was superb. Whatever business wanted, it got…Like Spitzer, an early member of the DLC, he simply prefers an oligarchy to a kleptocracy – you can take pretty much whatever you want, just pass the enabling legislation first!! (And Dean, but not Spitzer, would have a diff. foreign policy – were it allowed by those elites.) Neither, however, have much use for American citizens – below the 1% of course.

Posted by: jj | Jan 3 2005 7:17 utc | 22

This is where I came in (on the last open thread) but once again Justin Raimondo seems to me to have written something worth reading. Of course, he can’t resist a few anti-leftist barbs, but the thrust of his indictment of America’s self-styled “conservatives” is more
incriminating than the hazy generalities of many leftist critiques. Even those who prefer irenicism have to admire Raimondo’s vis polemica , and when it touches his Italian roots we get something close to a call for vendetta .

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 3 2005 12:32 utc | 23

At the risk of assuming the unwelcome role of “resident rightist” I post a link to

the essay by Lew Rockwell cited by Raimondo, also worth reading, IMHO.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 3 2005 12:52 utc | 24

US Muslims Fingerprinted at Border
WASHINGTON, 1 January 2005 — After the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing racial profiling against Muslims and Arabs, many Muslims are nervous to visit the United States. Now Muslim Americans may think twice before leaving the country.
US Muslim organizations are calling for an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into an incident at the Canadian border where American Muslim citizens were singled out for special security checks based on their attendance at an Islamic conference. They were held until they agreed to be fingerprinted.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the incident was a disturbing example of religious profiling that would have a chilling effect on the constitutional rights of American Muslims, particularly the right to the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and the right to be “secure in their persons; against unreasonable searches.”
…

Posted by: sukabi | Jan 5 2005 7:54 utc | 25

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