At year's end, signs of dictatorship abound in Washington

[DuctapeFatwa]

The telltale signs of dictatorship and fascism abound in this city on the Potomac. Some of the signs-concrete barricades and 8-foot walls around monuments-are apparent. Others, like video cameras, although more subtle, are every bit as ubiquitous. For those who have never visited Washington, DC, or who traveled here during better times, the city that is suppose to represent the aspirations of the American people is now a hollow shell of its former self.

The White House Ellipse is now a security bivouac....chain link fences, concrete Jersey barriers, menacing black Secret Service SUVs, squad cars, and security "men in black" armed to the teeth. Sitting in the midst of this security encampment is the National Christmas Tree. Once surrounded by rosy-cheeked youngsters who marveled at its thousands of ornaments and lights up close, the tree is now viewed after dark from afar-its future as endangered as its rooted relatives in the Rocky Mountain and Alaska National Forest and Wilderness areas.

Vice President Dick Cheney sent out thousands of Christmas cards this year that extolled the Bush administration's international imperial agenda by suggesting God approves it. Taking a quote by founder Benjamin Franklin out of context, Cheney's card read, "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"..

Washington Metro system now bans the sale of newspapers...Trash piles up on subway platforms and trains because waste containers on the concourses are also banned. Recorded announcements appeal to passengers to report anyone who looks "suspicious."...a vicious Metro police German shepherd viciously lunged at a man's seeing-eye dog. The police dog's handler seemed amused by the incident...The ghosts of Bull Connor of Alabama (who ordered German shepherd attacks on African American civil rights marchers) and the dog handling Nazi guards of Auschwitz must be smiling down on Washington, DC...

Drivers and passengers who drive past the Pentagon on Virginia state highways are confronted by menacing Humvees with their high caliber machine guns pointed at the traffic. Virginia State Police cars are required to stop suspicious vehicles on the highways long before they approach the Pentagon. One such "suspicious" vehicle stopped and searched during the past year was the Oscar Mayer "Weiner Mobile." A number of commercial vehicles driven by dark skinned and hirsute men have been stopped, questioned, and searched...The Washington Post has become nothing more than a version of the old Soviet-era paper Pravda. In fact, its nickname has become "Pravda on the Potomac." Rather than investigate the mysterious "suicides" of anti-Iraq war foreign policy experts who were reported to have jumped from Washington buildings and the mysterious death of a Bush family domestic employee in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, the Post continues to sycophantically treat the Bush regime as a legitimate, run-of-the-mill administration-publishing puff pieces on Bush's dogs and White House Christmas decorations. White House press credentials are considered as good as gold these days and the Post will bend over backwards and forwards to keep its access to the West Wing....

http://freeserv.dukascopy.com:9099/chart/priceCache.html?id=1%2C2%2C3%2C4%2C23%2C25%2C26%2C333%2C334%2C335%2C345%2C510

[Fridays Child]

1. It doesn't sound like the city I came to for the Voter March in May, 2001.

How dismal and frightening.

[neebob]

35. Very dismal and frightening!

Especially for those of who live in small, out-of-the-way towns and other places where nothing's visibly changed. I was feeling optimistic - thinking how unlikely it is that real terrorists are "chattering" about their plans and this is all just a big show and we're all supposed to go, "Wow, look at all the stuff that didn't happen here! George Bush is on the job" - until I read that article. Then I started poking around propagandamatrix and prisonplanet.com. Now I'm back to believing they'll stage an attack for good measure.

Sigh. Today I spent two hours trying to convince my mother what a bunch of lying scumbags they are, to no avail. She knows better because she watches "her" Fox news. Might as well talk to a rock.

[Atman]

2. Got a usable link?

Great article. I'd like to read the rest.

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. what really happened has it, you can click their link

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

or if a nerd happens along they can fix the one in the post.

[rumguy]

4. I lived in DC in the early 90s and have fond memories of the place

I hope Bush doesn't destroy it and turn it into a 21st century version of Moscow was like during the cold war...totally militarized...I know that's what some of the pukes what, hell that's what they want to do to the whole country...a militarized, police state ruled over by an iron-fisted executive branch...an American fascism...fucking scary!

[ConsAreLiars]

5. working link

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/301203signsofdictatorship.html

Worth reading. Something very wrong has happened when "the good old days" means "3 years ago."

[PaDUer]

10. Was very apparent

on election nite..then the theft, and the coronation..Remember all the extra SS hired for PROTECTION...Looks like he's shit scared of the PEOPLE...Mother F'er..Wonder how long before someone loses it and goes at him..

[MoonRiver]

6. I'm glad I've already toured Washington.

Wouldn't want to go there now.

[Darranar]

7. Link...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/123003yearsend.html

[Liberal_Dog]

8. Coming Soon To Cities and Towns Across the US of A

eom

[Newsjock]

9. Sad and maddening

And all for what? Some oil? A couple billion bucks? Sheer unadulterated power?

I just don't get it. Sometimes I think I do, but I really don't.

[izzie]

18. Well the drinks fried his brain years ago and now.......

he has all these scary people telling him how to be a hero and also a second term. What I do not understand is half the people giving up their power so easy and with so much faith in this man, tells them he talks to God.Scary what 3 years can do to a country, Well Hitler did it for 12 years and his country was gone and most of the people were with him.

[YNGW]

11. Warning

Be aware that COINTELPRO agents have used covert methods in the past to discredit people or groups they regard as dangerous. There are those who have every reason to believe COINTELPRO agents acting as agent provecurs are attempting to use these methods here, knowing that their postings will be viewed by the general public as "crack-pot conspiracy theories", (i.e. claiming the US is becoming a fascist dictatorship) and these things will be used in order to discredit the Democratic Party. Please be aware they have used these methods in the past with great success. Also, be aware that they will attack and attempt to discredit any and all who they fear are exposing these methods.

[truth2power]

12. What in the world are you talking about??

Is this sarcasm? You posted something similar in another thread.

There are plenty of people not on DU who are using the F word in regard to this administration. There was an article recently which included the phrase, "Fascism exists in a vacuum of denial." I agree.

[YNGW]

15. Reply

>There are plenty of people not on DU who are using the F word in regard to this administration.

Agent provecurs are intentionally placed in places that will be preceived as trustworthy sources. They want you to talk about it openly so they can use it against us. There are ways to discuss such items that cannot be used to help promote the enemy. Do it here, and they can use it against us by having their willing accomplices in the corporate media point to these comments and handcuff the whole Democratic party to what the general public will preceive as "wing-nut conspiracy theorists."

[truth2power]

19. Bollocks!!!

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck.....

It's too late in the game to be behaving as if we're at a tea party.

P.S. Gonna look for that article I mentioned. It was in that Limbaugh download thing. Would be apt here.

edit: Found it. Referenced below.

BTW, YNGW...I understand what you're saying. It's not that it's not fascist. It's just that we shouldn't be calling it that here. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said, above.

[YNGW]

20. Reply

>If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck.....

I'm denying nothing. I said there are proper ways to discuss it without giving the enemy the opportunity to use it against us.

[truth2power]

21. If we walked on water they'd use it against us.

I'm not playing. thanks.

[YNGW]

23. Reply

>I'm not playing. thanks.

Then they'll play for you. And they'll make it stick. And 2004 will be lost.

That's not what we want.

[truth2power]

27. No offense, but...

You do it your way and I'll do it mine. I don't see where we've gained anything by playing by their rules. They own the executive, legislative, judicial, media, and every other damn thing.

Guess I'll go down fighting. I can live with that...or not, as the case may be.

[number6]

13. you got a fixation with this COINTELPRO stuff ...

and yes I see my freedoms slowly eroding day by day ...

[TruthIsAll]

14. Warning II

Be aware that Right-wing nuts and Rovian disruptors are attempting to disrupt and debunk valid arguments for conspiracy raised at DU, be it Wellstone, 9/11, BBV, anti-war, Carlyle/Halliburton etc.. There are those who have every reason to believe these disruptors are agents acting to stifle legitimate discussion here, attempting to convince the public that DU postings will be viewed by the general public as "crack-pot conspiracy theories", (i.e. claiming the US is becoming a fascist dictatorship) and these things will be used in order to discredit the Democratic Party. Please be aware they have used these methods in the past with great success, but now the world-wide unbiquitous power of the Internet and Google exposes the true evil-doers instead. Also, be aware that DUers will continue to search for the truth and will not be cowered by any attempts to discredit their arguments.

[YNGW]

16. Do that...

and you play right into their hands.

>attempting to convince the public that DU postings will be viewed by the general public as "crack-pot conspiracy theories", ...and these things will be used in order to discredit the Democratic Party.

You'll be convinced once you see it taking place, but then it will be too late.

[TheWatcher]

30. Sorry, my friend, but this is a waste of time......

It's painfully insulting to my intelligence to the point, and i'm sure to many here on DU.....

I'm sorry, those of us who are aware of what's going on are not going to be cowed into silence, or influenced to keep our mouth s shut or modify the way we discuss things.....

The hour is far too late for that.....There is too much at stake.....

As far as I'm concerned, you're on Ignore.....

I do not have time or the patience for things like this anymore.....

I want my country back, and it may be too late to take it back, but I'm not going to be intimidated or cowed by anyone, and I hope no one else at DU will be either.....

I'm not buying what you're selling.....

This article speaks REALITY, and the REALITY of what is going on in that city is hard to miss.....

If this post gets me a warning, so be it.....

I'll take one for the team.....

[truth2power]

22. Thank yeww, Truth

;)

[Individualist]

17. The "provecurs" is here, the "provecurs" is here

Oooh, I'm so skeered. :scared:

*sarcasm off*

[number6]

26. isn't provocateurs ????

:eyes: :crazy: :smoke:

[truth2power]

24. Article

Here's a section from that article I mentioned above:

from: "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism"

"When he was a young man, he told us, he served in the U.S. Army as part of the occupation forces in Germany after World War II. He was put to work gathering information for the military tribunal preparing to prosecute Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. His job was to spend time in the villages adjacent to one concentration camp and talk to the residents about what they knew.

The villagers, he said, knew about the camp, and watched daily as thousands of prisoners would arrive by rail car, herded like cattle into the camps. And they knew that none ever left, even though the camp never could have held the vast numbers of prisoners who were brought in. They also knew that the smokestack of the camp’s crematorium belched a near-steady stream of smoke and ash. Yet the villagers chose to remain ignorant about what went on inside the camp. No one inquired, because no one wanted to know.

"But every day," he said, "these people, in their neat Germanic way, would get out their feather dusters and go outside. And, never thinking about what it meant, they would sweep off the layer of ash that would settle on their windowsills overnight. Then they would return to their neat, clean lives and pretend not to notice what was happening next door.

"When the camps were liberated and their contents were revealed, they all expressed surprise and horror at what had gone on inside," he said. "But they all had ash in their feather dusters."

That story neatly compresses the way fascism works: in a vacuum of denial.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_08_03_dneiwert_archive.html#106049865736276725

[YNGW]

28. I couldn't agree more.

My point has been that there are proper ways to discuss these things, just not in ways that can be used against us. Posting them here in broad daylight can be used against us, which is a method COINTELPRO has used for years and is using now to their advantage. Things said on DU are going to be translated to be the voice of the Democratic party.

Think of the bomb that was placed in the car of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney of Earth First! back in 1990. Many pointed the finger at the FBI as the one's who planted the bomb. That did a lot of damage to the whole Earth First! organization. While the most recent trial in Oakland demonstrated that the FBI misused information, the accusations hurled by activists hurt Earth First! tremendously. There was a better way to go about it that would not have provided ammunition for the enemy, but instead, the activists gave the FBI exactly what they wanted on a silver platter.

The people in Germany couldn't get out and say what they perceived was happening while standing on a soapbox. It would have gotten them shot. Granted, they should have done something, but anything they did would have had to have been done in a more discreet manner. We must use the same discretion or we'll suffer the same consequences.

[truth2power]

29. A few weeks ago Andy Rooney

said, for anyone who had ears to hear, and half a brain, that Bush was a dictator. And I think he made pretty clear allusions to a fascist state.

I thought, "Sh*t, did I just hear what I thought I heard?" then someone here pointed out they'd heard it too. A few brave souls are all but beating the sheep over the head with it. It's out there. It's not exactly a secret.

[Bridget Burke]

31. Please, let us know "the proper way"

To discuss what's happening in America.

It's quite evident that some posters on these boards want us all to shut up. Thanks for the advice. I'm sure it will be given the consideration it deserves.

[YNGW]

34. Methods

Better to discuss it F2F in small groups of people you know you can trust and spread the word using that same method. You don't overthrow dictators by announcing it. You don't give them ammo they can cut and paste or otherwise direct the willing sheep to come view.

[ConsAreLiars]

32. "instead, the activists gave the FBI exactly what they wanted" --WOW!

"On June 11, a federal jury returned a stunning verdict in favor of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in their landmark civil rights lawsuit against four FBI agents and three Oakland Police officers.

The jury clearly found that six of the seven FBI and OPD defendants framed Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer. That was evident in the fact that 80% of the $4.4 million total damage award was for violation of their First Amendment rights to speak out and organize politically in defense of the forests.

"The jury exonerated us," said Darryl Cherney. "They found the FBI to be the ones in violation of the law. The American public needs to understand that the FBI can't be trusted. Ten jurors got a good, hard look at the FBI and they didn't like what they saw."

You say Earth First! and those others denouncing the FBI "gave them what they wanted"? You assert that speaking out against totalitarianism is ill-advised? Sounds like duplicity at best and complicity at least.

(edit to add link)
http://www.judibari.org/

[YNGW]

33. They did.

>You say Earth First! and those others denouncing the FBI "gave them what they wanted"? You assert that speaking out against totalitarianism is ill-advised? Sounds like duplicity at best and complicity at least.

They did give them what they wanted. It scared people away from the movement and cost the organization probably millions of dollars from those who were not willing to donate to an organization they preceived as either being militant or they were afaid of being enjoined to them.

[ConsAreLiars]

37. So, they should not have challenged the FBI?

And proven that the frame-up was a lie?
Instead they should have said, "Oh so sorry, massah. We know that questioning your perfection would offend some. So sorry. Nevermind."

???

And that would serve who? Young "W" and its ilk, I suspect.

[Minstrel Boy]

25. Cheney's Christmas card...

"And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"

If anyone still doubted whether the mask had fallen, doubt no more.

They've founded an empire. They don't shirk the word. They're proud of it.

[NJCher]

36. Terrorists missing the boat

If they were really smart they'd be taking the content of articles like this and putting it in "Allah-speak" on videotapes. They ought to be sitting there like Ross Perot with his charts, showing how they have won. The little chimperor is all locked up with no place to go.

Next up, a bar chart showing the enormous expenditures on security. They didn't even have to spend $200,000 on this last round of WH-perpetuated terrorism frenzy and they got the U.S. to spend millions. That's a win in anybody's book; now they just need to publicize it.


Cher