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The Saker Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Lockdown Skeptics
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international edition
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No free spech in America if you're against the war national |
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news report
 Thursday March 27, 2003 11:18 by kokomero
 McCarthy's ghost alive and well and living in the US Democracy is under threat in the United States; anyone who objects to the conflict in Iraq is not allowed to say so I can personally testify to this as I was told by many friends in the US while visiting recently that they are against the war and attend marches etc. but feel unable to speak out in the workplace etc. for fear of a backlash from war-mongers McCarthy's ghost Democracy is under threat in the United States; anyone who objects to the conflict in Iraq is not allowed to say so Gary Younge It's drive time with WABC's rightwing talkshow host, Curtis Sliwa, and Bill is on the line from the Poconos in Pennsylvania with a tale so funny he can hardly share it for giggling. "She was wearing black and she was an older lady," says Bill. "And then our sheriff saw her and she didn't have a permit. So they put her in the back of the truck car and hauled her away." On its own, Bill's story would be aberrant - the tale of an overzealous legal official and an unfortunate woman in smalltown America. Increasingly though it is becoming consistent. The harassment, arrest, detention and frustration of those who are against the war is becoming routine. Relatives of victims who died on September 11, who are opposed to the war, have been prevented from speaking in schools. Last month Stephen Downs was handcuffed and arrested after refusing to take off a Give Peace a Chance T-shirt in a mall in Albany. He was told he would have been found guilty of trespass if the mall had not dropped the case because of the bad publicity. As Iraqi civilians and American, British and Iraqi soldiers perish in the Gulf, this war is fast claiming another casualty - democracy in the US. This process is not exclusive to America. Civil liberties have suffered in Britain because of the war in Northern Ireland, and are undergoing further erosion because of the conflict. But it has a particular resonance here because of the McCarthyite era during the 1950s when those suspected of supporting communism were forced to testify before the Senate to recant their views and divulge names of progressives. Comparisons with McCarthyism are valid but must be qualified. These popular and sporadic displays of intolerance may be gathering pace, but no federal edict has been issued to support them and many who support the war are opposed to them. Bush has not launched a campaign to derail the Dixie Chicks, the all-American girl band whose CDs were crushed by a mob and whose latest release fell from the top of the charts after one of its singers made an anti-war remark in London. Downs says the officer who arrested him spent an hour-and-a-half trying to persuade his superiors that the case was not worth pursuing. Even Curtis Sliwa told Bill he should "ignore the protesters and get out the flags". While these popular expressions of intolerance appear sporadic, not all are spontaneous. The rally to smash the Dixie Chicks' CDs and much of the impetus for the boycott of their single came from radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications of Texas, which has close ties with Bush. The company's stations also called for the pro-war rallies that have cropped up in the past week. And while they have not received the state's imprimatur, Bush's administration has certainly created the climate in which they can thrive. Under Big Brother monikers like the Patriot Act and Operation Liberty Shield, the state has stepped up the scope of its surveillance and the wiretapping of American citizens and will authorise the indefinite detention of asylum seekers from certain countries. Last year, surveillance requests by the federal government under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - originally intended to hunt down foreign spies - outnumbered all of those under domestic law for the first time in US history. Under a proposed new bill, entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement act, the government could withhold the identity of anyone detained in connection with a terror investigation and their names would be exempt from the Freedom of Information act, according to the centre for public integrity, a Washington-based advocacy group. Barry Steinhardt, director of the American civil liberties union programme on technology and liberty, told the New York Times that authorities have been demanding records from internet providers and libraries about what books people are taking out and which websites they're looking at. The result is a symbiotic relationship between the mob and the legislature, whereby official repression provides the framework for public scapegoating with each gaining momentum from the other. Most vulnerable are those who are most vulnerable anyway - Arab immigrants and non-white Americans. Men from countries regarded as potential sources of terrorism and who do not have a green card, are now required to be registered, fingerprinted and photographed by the immigration service. Many who have committed no crime but simply have their applications for a work permit pending are routinely arrested. "Basically, what this has become is an immigration sweep," said Juliette Kayam, a terrorism expert at Harvard. "The idea that this has anything to do with security, or is something the government can do to stop terrorism, is absurd," she told the Washington Post. The growing surveillance compounded by discrimination adversely affects black Americans too. "It places those of us of colour under increased scrutiny and we get caught up in the web of racial profiling," says Jean Bond, of the Radical Black Congress. The fact that all the incidents mentioned above happened to white, American-born natives is an indication of just how deep the rot has set in. Downs is the chief lawyer in the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Such are the targets of the war on terror. From the outset Bush has insisted that: "Those who are not for us are against us," and so it follows that anyone opposed to his way of dealing with the terrorist threat becomes the enemy, at home or abroad. Terrorism is the new communism. Even before the first body bags have arrived, the war has already reached the home front. · Gary Younge appears in J'Accuse Uncle Sam on Channel 4 tomorrow. g.younge@guardian.co.uk
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Comments (9 of 9)
Jump To Comment: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=38210&start=70
In kokomero’s piece above is a reference to the Dixie Chicks’ boycott by Clear Channel Communications (Texas).
A recent posting on this NewsWire entitled “Campbell's Death Soup” referenced a billboard company Clear Channel Media whose billboard had been changed by activists in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, it’s the same company.
Previously the activists asked to rent the billboard space for antiwar messages but were refused.
The Campbell's Soup story at: http://www.indymedia.ie/cgibin/newswire.cgi?id=38210&start=70
and the JP Bulletin at: http://www.bulletinnewspapers.com
"Oppression and Harrassment are a small price to pay to live in the land of the free"
Perhaps now I should share some words I wrote shortly after 9/11. I'll keep taking the tablets.
Patriotic Ironies
Let's get the fu&*(&*(ing arabs. Let's kill them. We will defend our freedom. We will get anyone who tries to get us. Let's look out for anyone who supports them. Let's keep an eye on the mosques. I see someone there who looks a little arabic. Stare at him. Watch his moves. Yell at him. Humiliate him. Attack him. We will defend our freedom. We are Americans, they are something else. We must defend our freedom. I see someone there who looks a little left-leaning. We know about those types. They're not like us. They go on peace rallies. Let's get them. Let's watch them, survey them, humiliate them, attack them. We need to defend our country, our liberty. We are Americans. Let's track these people down wherever they hide. We need to defend our freedom. Emails , security cameras, paperwork, watching, surveying, numbering, holding to account. We need to defend our freedom. That guy over there has long hair (or some other cultural trait). He's not like us. We have short hair, wear blue shirts and heavy black shoes. Let's get him. We need to defend our freedom. There's another one I'm not quite sure about. We may have to keep him in line. He has short hair, blue shirt and heavy black shoes alright, but there's something about the way he walks. I'll keep an eye on him. I'll spy on him tonight. He could be an imposter. I need to know what's in his heart. Is he one of us? We need to protect our freedom. Oh no, you seem to misunderstand. Surely you don't think I'm an imposter. This is all a ruse? Oh no, I'm one of you, don't you realize. I must be more careful to conform. We need to protect our freedom. I wear all the right clothes, make all the right moves, gesture appropriately and belong to all the right organizations. I confess, now that you ask, to a state of constant subdued panic lest I put a foot wrong. But, you see, we need to protect our freedom. It has something to do with an event that happened long ago in 2001. I can't remember the details. But we are americans. Who are you?
Footnote: Since I wrote that I've been placed under arrest and I await trial on a charge of being unamerican which carries a maximum penalty of 30 years imprisonment. If I had this to do over, I'd be more careful to protect my freedom.
I am an amercan and i think P.O. is right on target.
I dont take tablets I just live here.
Nonviolent anti-war demos are pro-actively harrassed and intimidated by para-military riot cops.
I mean goons on the roof tops with scopes. Weapons seen being sniper rifles.
they are the domestic arm of the imperial anglo/american army now committing war crimes in Iraq.
Yes, things are bad here, and getting worse.
jarhead, Which bits do you have an issue with?
Are you saying there is no such thing as the Patrot Act I or II perhaps?
Are you suggesting that in fact there has been no reduction on people's freedom
and civil liberties in the US?
I don't see how you extrapolate things to the very obvious absurdity about aliens.
Let's see, there was no frauds in Enron or WorldCom, anyone who thinks so is a mad
conspiracy theorist and next thing we know it was aliens who will be running the
economy.
Political observer, have you stopped taking your tablets? You must have as those are the words of someone with a severe mental illness. I suppose Bush et al are conspiring with aliens to enslave the planet. It makes as much sense as the bollox you posted.
What is happening is as planned. Sept 9/11 and all of that is a pretext to turn the USA
from a capitalist state to a totalitarian state. The process is at least 2/3s of the way,
with the pending introduction of Patriot Act II likely to complete the process.
As warned, the Iraqi war will lead to more terrorism. This is exactly what the Bush cabal want,
because they need to maintain the fear and any attacks can be used as (thin) cover for further
repression and the introduction of PATRIOT ACT II. If the terrorist attacks do not occur, it
is very likely that elements in the CIA/NSA/Defence establishment will carry out such attacks
themselves. It is absolutely essential to the project underway by the Bush cabal that more
terrorist attacks do occur.
By the way PATRIOT ACT I, effectively thrashed their consitution and it has been widely reported
that virtually none of the members of congress even read the 600 page document before all voting
for it, bar one. It was introduced at the height of the Anthrax attacks straight after 9/11.
The Anthrax attacks had absolutely nothing to do with Arab terrorists and it is on the public record
that the Anthrax originated from inside US military biological weapons facilities and the suspects
are former employees there.
We will not be free here, once the snuffing out of democracy is completed in the USA.
There are already disturbing signs both in this country and other EU states of pending legalistation
and of abuses by the State of our freedoms and democracy.
Here are 16 posters to put up in the US/UK
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2003/03/26/1048354635614.html
E.G.
"We'll take care of the axis of evil - you take care of domestic dissent"
V Do as your told
I Pay your increased war taxes
C Don't ask questions. About anythng
T Watch your neighbours , especially foreign ones
O Forget what you stocks and shares were worth
R Don't worry about the environment
Y Remember patriotism requires blind obedience
A message from the Ministry of Homeland Security.