U.S. Imperialism Creating Police State at Home

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/U-S-Imperialism-Creating-by-Sherwood-Ross-110725-9.html

As America's empire spreads abroad, it becomes ever more the police state at home. The methods used for the suppression of foreigners by military force and violence are eventually mirrored in the "homeland."

In an article last September 25 th titled "It Is Official: the US Is A Police State," author Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Treasury Secretary during the Reagan years, wrote, "'Violent extremism' is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning's FBI foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with 'the material support of terrorism'..."

The FBI raids at home are reminiscent of U.S. military raids overseas. In Iraq, for instance, labor union offices were raided and rifled and labor leaders imprisoned by the Occupation forces. Their "crime" was to oppose sweetheart contract deals with private oil firms.

The vast U.S. prison system, which houses 2.4 million Americans, may be compared with the Gulag the U.S. has built abroad. America today is the World's Jailer. As Allan Uthman reported on AlterNet, in 2006 the Bush regime began building "detention centers" to warehouse inmates for unspecified "new programs" when the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root nearly $400 million. What we do abroad, we do at home.

More at the link --

[RKP5637]

1. As many Americans snooze along listening to MSM propaganda, disinformation,

distortion and lies. And then one day wonder WTF.

[Ship of Fools]

2. I agree. Change will happen after destruction, imho, because we've snoozed.

[robcon]

3. The U.S. is NOTHING like a police state. Your OP is a fantasy.

You apparently don't know anything about police states.

[EFerrari]

4. Tim DeChristopher just got two years for disrupting a crime in progress.

I have to disagree with that.

Tim DeChristopher's courageous bid to save our world

By Peter Yarrow

July 26, 2011
In March, Tim DeChristopher was convicted of two felony counts for a nonviolent act of civil disobedience. Acting out of his deepest convictions and his abiding concern for the survival of humankind, Tim bid on oil and gas leases on federal land that he didn't have the means to pay for. On Tuesday, he could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison for his actions.

The auction Tim disrupted was being conducted during the final weeks of the George W. Bush administration, in what many believed was a push to sell one last batch of public leases before President Obama took office. Tim's intention at the December 2008 auction was to prevent the parcels, some of them on scenic land near Arches and Canyonlands national parks, from going to oil and gas companies.

On the eve of Tim's trial, I went to Salt Lake City to give a concert for his supporters at his church with my daughter, Bethany, and cellist Rufus Cappadocia. I will return to Salt Lake City to support him and his cause on Tuesday.

Tim is a hero to me, the kind of hero Peter, Paul and Mary stood up for consistently over the last 50 years. Throughout American history, acts of civil disobedience have led to change. Think about the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves to freedom, or about the courageous actions of people like Rosa Parks, who refused to stay in the back of the bus simply because of their skin color. Without this kind of defiance of unjust laws, our country would likely still be denying people of color basic freedoms.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-oe-yarrow-oil-leases-20110726,0,6914658.story?track=rss

[robcon]

5. I can admire his stand. But fraud is a crime. Did he expect to get away with fraud?

n/t