"It is no longer extreme to say we now live in a fascist police state. Thanks to the Patriot Act, the SCOTUS' Citizens United decision, and a complacent electorate, our First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly now only exist on paper. In Tienanmen Square, the Chinese government also censored the press and violently cracked down on peaceful protesters. All that's missing here are the tanks."
A scene from director Michael Radford's version of Orwell's classic novel - 1984. (photo: MGM Studios Inc.)
America Has Become a Fascist Police State
26 November 11
Reader Supported News | Perspective
eorge Orwell's "1984" wasn't meant to be an instruction manual.One word that emerged from the novel was the word "doublespeak," where truth is deliberately obfuscated through clever wording. In some cases, the meaning of a word is reversed entirely. Oceania, the totalitarian regime in Orwell's book, used doublespeak as a matter of course. The Ministry of Truth specialized in propaganda. The Ministry of Love was a secretive torture complex.
In the early years of public school, or in public addresses by politicians, America is touted as the Land of the Free, or the Land of Opportunity, or the Greatest Country on Earth. We're taught from near-infancy that this country was founded on the right to say what you want, whenever, wherever, to whomever. We're told we have the freedom to assemble peacefully, to petition our leaders for a redress of grievances. We're taught that if you're apprehended by the law, you have the right to a fair trial and legal representation.
Yet, today we live in a country where government aids the corporate takeover of elections. Here, banks who fraudulently took Americans' homes for profit can get bailed out by the taxpayers, and use the money to pay themselves 12-figure bonuses. This is a country where even US citizens can be detained without due process, tortured, and even assassinated overseas.
Today, in the Land of the Free, nonviolent political protesters using their First Amendment rights to speak out against all of the above can be beaten, tasered, and maced by heavily-militarized police forces, using military-grade equipment, without any provocation.
- Students sitting down in the quad at UC Davis were covered with military-grade pepper spray, before cops in riot gear knelt on them and sprayed indiscriminately down student's throats according to Professor Nathan Brown of UC Davis.
- At UC Berkeley, Robert Hass, a former poet laureate, was clubbed by police while nonviolently protesting with students.
- In Seattle, cops clad in riot gear pepper-sprayed an 84-year-old woman and an expectant mother.
- In Oakland, veterans who served overseas to allegedly protect the rights we hold dear come home and get aggressively beaten without warning, and shot in the face with tear-gas canisters. Oakland police even threw a flash-bang grenade at people rushing to give medical attention to the wounded vet.
The recent Black Friday mobs of consumers pitching tents in parking lots and rioting over $2 waffle irons were met with silence from the police. Yet, 10 people speaking out in a Wal-Mart about the company's CEO making $19,000 per hour while his employees are forced to work on a holiday for less than poverty-level wages apparently provokes police to tackle and arrest the citizens nonviolently encouraging shoppers to buy local. In today's America we can Occupy for Capitalism, but not for Democracy.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has openly admitted that the recent police crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street solidarity encampments were the result of careful coordination between mayors on a series of conference calls. There are also reports that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI gave advice on the crackdowns, encouraging municipalities to deploy large numbers of police, equip them with riot gear, and break up encampments when the media were least likely to be present. Reports from New York allege that reporters were asked to raise their hand if they had press credentials, before being penned in an area far from the protests. Those trying to get through were arrested, and told that it was illegal to "take pictures on the sidewalk."
It is no longer extreme to say we now live in a fascist police state. Thanks to the Patriot Act, the SCOTUS' Citizens United decision, and a complacent electorate, our First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly now only exist on paper. In Tienanmen Square, the Chinese government also censored the press and violently cracked down on peaceful protesters. All that's missing here are the tanks.
Mussolini said, "Fascism should be more accurately called corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power." It is Orwellian doublespeak to call this country "free" while freedom is actively suppressed with aid from a corporate-owned government. The people are not free if their leaders are actively making war with them.
Carl Gibson, 24, of Lexington, Kentucky, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. He graduated from Morehead State University in 2009 with a B.A. in Journalism before starting the first US Uncut group in Jackson, Mississippi, in February of 2011. Since then, over 20,000 US Uncut activists have carried out more than 300 actions in over 100 cities nationwide. You may contact Carl at carl@rsnorg.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Comments
Now, it looks like we now need to re-fight this battle to free us all.
Who is J.Edgar Hoover in this current state of affaires?
This is another "Change" worth fighting for. Where do we start?
Excellent article Carl.
SHAME ON YOU!!!
Look up the definition of "Fascism" and you will then know what is happening here.
We should clearly see that our system is fatally flawed and move to replace it.
This has been going on FOREVER by the US all over the world. We just got thrown out of the Shamsi air strip for our role in the NATO air strike that killed 25 Pakistani's, unprovoked!
The bigger deal is that the US have been doing this sort of thing here in the face of non-violent disruption recently; we've been a fascist State for a long, long time.
Carl's right: "all that's missing are the tanks" on our soil and I fully expect that to happen.
N.
Its construction followed a long, private phone conversation she held outside with someone.
I questioned her after discovering and disassembling it. She assured me it was a "mistake." Clearly, someone prompted her, and I'm rather sure it was to send me a message about some of the things coming from my keyboard the last couple months.
I guess I've graduated.
Check out "Crossing the Rubicon"(had/has site called fromthewilderne ss.com)
I am becoming more cautious, dammit!
We cannot let em pick us off individually, if we can help it.
Best wishes and keep the faith !
Imperial militaristic power destroying the World - hated.
Not an optimistic outlook for young generation.
It is up to ua, the 99% -- it is our job to bring in the Change we can believe in. We must evolve our consciousness beyond the self-survival 'fight/flight' instinctive level. That is legitimate for the physical survival of animals but it is not appropriate for humans to use as an ezxuse for war on behalf of our 'beliefs'.
the consvioudnrdd of human beings must rise to the level of compassion. Eac one of us must live for the good of the whole.
This is a vile country, and the Foxes, in more ways then one, are in the chicken coop. Horrifying!!
Not quite! Banks got bailed out by representatives elected taxpayers who chose to vote on a given day. That's a problem with representative democracy that could in fact be resolved by universal referenda on key issues, which digital technology and telecom have made possible. The one hurdle left thereafter is the software for voting and vote-counting that, for some reason, America can't get right but more primitive democracies, such as India, can. The US need not be allowed to go wholly fascist and getting alarmist might cause more apathy and less participation.
"But there are Public defenders!" you say ? OK - but be aware that most - if not all - of America's condemned prisoners on death rows were defended by overworked, underpaid and understaffed Public Defenders. On the other hand, prosperous well connected, true criminals who can afford top lawyers are rarely questioned seriously and seldom, if ever, indicted.
Everything always comes down to "money" (which is synonymous with "power"). Consequently, through Citizens United and the Too Big To Fail FUBAR, Fat Corporate America - aided dy their cyphers in Congress & the Administration - can - and do - loot the American Treasury and WE THE PEOPLE with naked impunity.
Is this not what OWS is all aout?
Yes, that is what OWS is all about.
"Everything always comes down to "money" (which is synonymous with "power"). Consequently, through Citizens United and the Too Big To Fail FUBAR, Fat Corporate America - aided dy their cyphers in Congress & the Administration - can - and do - loot the American Treasury and WE THE PEOPLE with naked impunity."
This is the status quo that makes me angrier than every other issue threatening the well-being of our country. OWS deserves so much credit.
Actually, there be tanks here, too, Carl. In Tampa http://twitpic.com/7fnsos and Georgia http://www.shtfplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/policetank2.jpg
Plus LRADs http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/328-121/8476-introducing-the-lrad-sound-cannon
Land of the Fried and Home of the Bruised. Let freedom wring!
So, let's have a show of hands: Who in America really wants to live under a totalitarian fascist government?
No one? Then why are we trying so hard to achieve it? Remember, we're all working together at this, whether we like it or not. Because we're abiding by laws, that we're electing officials to change. Yet no one wants to claim responsibility for anything that doesn't sound good. While everyone keeps claiming that they're fighting against things that are bad!
So, why is it that the sum total effect of all this goodness is turning out bad? I don't understand, should we be fighting for badness? Would that make things good again? Oh wait, now I see it, it's this imprecise usage of words that is causing the confusion, problems and troubles.
Therefore, what we need is clearer interpretations of what is being said. Once people understand that, the liars can "drop dead"!
http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/256-justice/4820-is-it-fascism-yet
Insert any names of your choosing for Moses or Aaron. What exactly have the citizens of the U.S. done? Or the citizens of the many countries now suffering punishment?
Citizens must decide where to go from here. Make no mistake, however, the tanks are lurking just outside the firelight.
instead of the 19th century fear of 'tyranny of the majority', we have moved to 'tyranny of the minority' in the form of the corporations and the tea-baggers; John C. Calhoun is spinning in his grave...