Do The Neocons REALLY Want a Police State? (vincardog)

[ulTRAX]

This post was originally elsewhere http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1926312
but I thought it deserved its own thread.

Vincardog wrote:

"A police state is not the answer but it was their PLAN"
The bully NeoConvicts want a PERPETUAL state of WAR. They must be stopped"


I don't believe the neocons have establishing a police state as a goal. But we know neocons don't play well with others...... unless they get their way.

I DO suspect they are so enamored with the idea of creating a Pax Americana where no other power could threaten us that they could bankrupt the nation. (Excessive military spending has the added bonus of undermining the social safety net.) Given the sociopathic nature of world domination, neocons probably don't care if the rest of the world hates us as long as they fear us. Even as the enemies mount, it's doubtful they'd ever question their own pathological ideology. They might actually go to further extremes.

Given their contempt for the common people, they'd want them controlled. I suspect neocons would be quite happy using free trade and market forces to keep most down while insuring obscene wealth inequality for a few. I suspect they don't mind if corporations run amok. I suspect they favor the trend towards media concentration.... and they'd count on PR firms to help "manufacture consent" around their policies.

I suspect they would not mind also controlling popular resistance in the same way J. Edgar Hoover did. The PATRIOT Act and other legislation like it would help eat away at civil liberties.

But are the neocons actually planning to create a police state? I suspect not. But their goals and attitudes are so pathological that if they felt threatened, we might slip into one.

[Mass_Liberal]

1. thank you

nominated. Finally we have some friggin reality around here.

[lvx35]

2. well said

I like the use of the word pathology, because that's really what it is. The neo-conservatives are suffering from mental illness which allows them to accept extermly irrational statements as truth.

[wli]

3. among other things

The slide has been happening gradually for some time. We don't have so many people in prison because we're a free country.

The police state is a means to control society. The attack has two prongs, manufacturing consent and eliminating dissent. Witness "Guantanamo on the Hudson" etc., police riots vs. peaceful demonstrators (seemingly primarily at WTO meetings), eliminationist rhetoric, the garbage where people get fired or arrested for not being sufficiently "pro-war", and so on.

It's also something of an understatement to say the PATRIOT act "eats away at civil liberties". It unconstitutionally repeals a large swath the Bill of Rights, and other executive orders and legislation unconstitutionally repeal more.

There has been some kind of "conditioning" psyop going on about dumping the constitution entirely, rule by martial law, and an upcoming nuclear terrorism attack to get people used to these ideas. The imminent danger here should not be underestimated.

[alittlelark]

4. We have a higher % of people in prison than any other industrialized

country! Google for fun and learnin'.

I get what you're saying though.

[hiley]

5. Police State

is what I think they are going for.
It won't take that much to "slip" into one, either.
Slave Nation with militarized police.

[tmorelli415]

6. they want $$$$$

if it takes a police state to get it, so be it. the consequences of their lust for wealth and power aren't their concern - the ends justify the means.

[Tux]

7. Exactly

And they are an alliance to support it: fundies, libertarians, the wealthy, and corporations. This alliance will result in a Christian theocratic fastist government with endless war and a police state. Can't have people telling libertarians that outsourcing isn't helping anything and that not everyone wants an MBA nor can get one since most employers want entry level jobs to require experience but can't get the experience. Been like that since I graduated in 1998.

Overall, libertarians can fuck off. I'm tired of their pro-fascist, childish "I don't wanna pay taxes" shit, and supporting another nation's economy while harming ours.

[rucky]

8. it's a means to an end. n/t

[bonzotex]

9. Don't forget the National ID act

Slipped into an Emergency War Appropriations bill, the National ID Act is a nasty bit of Police state preparation. Written to look like an Immigrant control measure, it will basically create a National ID and citizen database for the Feds.

[ScamUSA.Com]

10. I do believe that... prisons, tazers, criminalizing everything, psych meds

money and power

etc

[ulTRAX]

15. on prisons

The large percentage of incarcerated citizens in the US is truly scandalous. But I don't blame the neocons. The problem predates them. I blame our dysfunctional political system. All too often politicians outbid each other to increase penalties for crimes lest they be accused of being "soft on crime" in the next election. This is what happened with the drug laws. Way back in 73 Nelson Rockefeller in NY may have been the first to institute such Draconian laws http://www.prdi.org/rocklawfact.html... and Congress went nuts with penalties against coke in the 80's.

Since in the US all elections are based upon districts/states as opposed to proportional representation... sane politicians more vulnerable to charges of being "soft on crime". I also blame privatization. If a profit can be made off prisons, then it should come as no surprise the prison industry has a vested interest in more incarcerations.

[ScamUSA.Com]

16. yeah totally.. locking people up for reefer dates back to 1937

[MadHound]

11. I think that a police state is exactly what they are aiming for,

And it has been persued for many years now. Ever since the beginning of the War on Drugs under Nixon, our civil liberties have whittled away, bit by bit. It is only under the Bush administration that the wholesale destruction of the Constitution has become too obvious to deny. Corporate America has, for decades now, forged farther ahead, what with piss tests, psych tests, and controling what their employees do both at and away from work. Now that it has become all too obvious what is going on, it is all being spun as "preventing terror".

A police state is the means to achieving the ends, which is complete control of the country, and the procuring of as much material wealth as possible. As people become more restive and outspoken, they have to be controlled, thus the harassment of protestors, the watch lists, the no fly lists, etc. etc. All in the name of keeping the US safe.

The media has been effectively silenced by its corporate masters. While nominally still a "free" press, in reality, it is nothing but the propaganda arm of the plutocracy. Crime after crime comes up, and yet all we hear from the press is crickets or spin.

Yes, a police state is exactly what the plutocrats in this country want, for it is how they can extract the last dollar from all of us, how they can achieve complete ownership and dominance in this country, and how they can do all of this without having to suffer a backlash. For you see, the plutocrats of this country wish to roll back civilization to the days of the Middle Ages, when the many were controlled completely by the few in a feudal system where the worker was merely another piece of property that came with the land.

[Totally Committed]

12. I agree... as long as they get to be the "police"...

a "police state" is what they're going for.

TC

[MadHound]

14. You've got it! What was that quote from Bush?

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000

This is the RW/Plutocrat's whole goal in a nutshell. And meanwhile, our freedom loving Founding Fathers spin in their graves. A President is working towards a police state, while the brain dead sheeple cheer as they are fitted for chains. Sometimes I am just stunned and numbed by this realization.

[ulTRAX]

17. Can't agree that a police state is the goal.....

I see as the neocon's goals as scary enough. I don't just don't see them actually wanting a police state. But one trend is clear... that the Right in the US is more radical than ever... and the Dems are a pathetic opposition party which has no countervailing vision for this nation.

We have to be careful looking at trends. Often they are in the mind of the beholder. For you to see a consistent trend to reduce rights going back to Nixon you have be selective... ignoring those areas where we have INCREASED rights. Those new rights protected EPA and OSHA come to mind as do some USSC rulings such as Roe v Wade. We often forget that with exception of Watergate, COINTELPRO, and Vietnam... Nixon was semi-enlightened... at least compared to today's Right wing Neanderthals. Besides OSHA and EPA, Nixon even proposed a guaranteed minimum income.

As for the Constitution, There is a historical trend that BOTH parties have ignored the ninth amendment. While radical judges such as Scalia have gone to the opposite extreme and claim the Constitution prohibits rights not enumerated while government has the power to do anything not prohibited.... the Dems have done nothing to expose this doctrine or educate the People. Of course both sides may see it as opening up a Pandora's Box... see this article on drugs and the 9th: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1299722

[tanyev]

13. They don't think a police state is a bad thing.

However, their assumption is always that the "policing" will be directed at everyone else, not them.

[hnsez]

18. We need to make sure we elect a Dem who will use the pol state against the

neocons and destroy them before destroying the police state. Who is smart enough to pull that off? They will need tons of credibility with the military & cia to do it. Clark?

[Vincardog]

19. WE need first FAIR transparent Elections

The Real Id act is the next step down the FASCIST path. Do we have to be stopped and asked for our papers and permission to travel before we see their agenda? Their goals are clear they want to transfer all costs to working people and free Money/Capital/Wealth from all restraint and tax.

* actually believes that he was born with the life he has because GOD likes him best. The NeoCons are actually willing to destroy our country to further their own personal private ambitions.
Traitors all

[ulTRAX]

21. fair elections don't amount to much in an anti-democratic system

In our federal system you can have
*100% voting age participation
*100% vote count accuracy
*100% public financing
*50% + 1 for a given party...

....and the election loser can still be still become president... and the party representing a minority of US citizens can run both Congress and the Senate.

So unless you reform all the antidemocratic aspects of US federalism... fair and transparent elections won't guarantee that government truly has the consent of the governed.

[Elwood P Dowd]

20. self delete - wrong thread