Homework…
Zeitgeist: Addendum – 1984 News
“The paralyzing necessity to preserve an institution, regardless of its social relevance is largely rooted in the need for money or profit.”
– Zeitgeist: Addendum
* * *
Since 2001, during the dark days of the Bush administration, something encouraging has happened in the western hemisphere. In many places the economic control of the landed aristocracy, the oil companies, the coffee Oligarchs, the drug cartels, and the military juntas is giving way to the will of a voting majority of the people. Democracy is re-emergent in the western hemisphere.
Bolivia — Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous President, leads the MAS party (Movimiento al Socialismo).
Chile — Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as President of the Republic of Chile on March 11, 2006.
Ecuador — Rafael Correa, a trained economist who describes himself as a humanist, a Christian of the left, and a proponent of socialism of the 21st century, took office in 2006.
Venezuela — Hugo Chávez, a critic of neoliberalism, globalization, and United States foreign policy, was elected President in 1998, re-elected in 2000 and 2006.
With the coming debasement of the US currency and the displacement of the US middle class, the foreclosures, the job losses, the evictions, I think it’s vital that we learn from our neighbors how to gain control over our own economy, how to restructure the global corporations, and how to distribute wealth fairly. But we have to be careful:
The John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006 (PL 109-364), “named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia,” was signed October 17, 2006, by President George W. Bush. The Act “has a provocative provision called ‘Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies’,” the thrust of which “seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to [Hurricane] Katrina-like disasters,” Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor wrote December 1, 2006.
“But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president’s power to deploy troops within the United States … ‘to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy’,” Stein wrote.
“But the amended law takes the cuffs off” and “critics say it’s a formula for executive branch mischief,” Stein wrote, as “the new language adds ‘natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident’ to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority — particularly ‘if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.’”
“One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law. … It ’subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law,’ he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29.”
– SourceWatch
At what point, asks the DNHC blog, will the looming economic disaster facing this country be declared an “emergency”? Before or after the scheduled November election? The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team is in place now, trained to deploy and use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,†according to 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier. Cloutier referred to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
The Army Times has updated their story on the First of the Third to clarify that, “The package is for use only in war-zone operations, not for any domestic purpose.” And if you believe that, there’s this bridge in Brooklyn…
Cloutier says, “It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.â€
The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.
There are over one million residents of the US on the Homeland Security Terrorist Watch List. The fear that the Bush scion, Cheney, and their corporate cronies feel is obvious from the number of people they have under surveillance. I think it’s that fear that brought the First of the Third home for active duty within these borders.
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement police or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states, their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate states.
The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act.
The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement.
– the ‘pedia
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