Hmm…. Methinks he doth protest too much.
Hi ya Chipper!
Peace,
Kris Millegan
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean McBride <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sat, 10 May 2008 11:08 am
Subject: [political-research] Chip Berlet on the Homegrown Terrorism Act
Chip Berlet on the Homegrown Terrorism Act
I am not Chip Berlet, and I never met or communicated with Chip Berlet. I
don't know much about Chip Berlet, and his writings don't particularly interest
me. But I just came across an excellent essay by Chip Berlet in opposition to
the Homegrown Terrorism Act on The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chip-berlet/its-time-again-to-push-th_b_100905.html
Right on, Mr. Berlet -- hit it.
I really doubt, however, that Berlet has the guts to draw the obvious vector
here:
VECTOR Israel lobby > Joseph Lieberman > Homegrown Terrorism Act >
neoconservative dictatorship and police state
The Israel lobby is obviously the prime mover behind this atrocity and many
other recent atrocities in American politics, including the disastrous Iraq War
and the clamor to expand this
disaster to Iran.
Grow a pair, Mr. Berlet, and start mentioning the "I" word when doing so is
called for and fully appropriate. There is indeed an elephant in the living
room.
BEGIN ARTICLE
PUBLICATION The Huffington Post
AUTHOR Chip Berlet
TITLE Lieberman Gift To McCain: Senate Islamist Terrorism Report
DATE May 8, 2008
BODY
When a bipartisan Congressional committee issues a report on the threat of
domestic terrorist violence during an election year, you can be sure that the
centrist establishment is worried about the popular backlash against government
repression and the threat to civil liberties.
That's nothing new.
Scholar William W. Keller argues that in times of wide-spread social unrest and
tensions, some liberals retreat from their oversight function as protectors of
civil liberties and allow authoritarian methods to be implemented in order to
restore order and defend the state. Right
now in Washington, DC, civil liberties activists have built a coalition that
spans the political spectrum from left to right. This coalition recently
managed to block legislation titled the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown
Terrorism Prevention Act." It was, as detailed here, lousy legislation and
deserved to be squashed.
Many voters do not support the war in Iraq and are suspicious of Bush
administration demands for even more erosions of civil liberties and
Constitutional rights.This scares the bipartisan status quo brigade, and
centrist Republicans and Democrats now rally behind the power of the state.
Dissidents on the left and right already are all potential suspects in the "War
on Terrorism." Who better to pick as the main target for the New Witch Hunt
than Muslims in America? Is there a more vulnerable community for a new
campaign based on fear?
So now comes a "series of reports by the Majority and Minority staff of the
Senate Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs...on the threat of homegrown terrorism
inspired by violent Islamist extremism." The first report, "Violent Islamist
Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat," (PDF) was
published today, 8 May 2008.
What's really amazing, is that this travesty of a "majority and minority"
report is not even really "bipartisan." The committee authors include Sen.
Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican, and Committee Chairmen Joseph
Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who has effectively lent himself to the
McCain campaign for the last few months.
The ACLU has issued a press release: "ACLU Skeptical of Senate Report on
'Homegrown' Terrorism," and a broad civil liberties coalition signed a letter
of protest that was actually issued the day before the report was made public.
Online, there has been almost no comment since the report was issued, hours
ago, but it's easy to imagine what the Republican spin doctors
and neo-McCarthyites are already whipping up in order to attack Democrats in
this election cycle as soft on terrorism. The blogosphere will soon pulsate
with their purple prose. This series of reports is a readymade script for the
Swift Boating of the Democratic Presidential nominee and a bludgeon with which
to push all of the candidates-- Democratic and Republican-- into a corner where
they will accept more government repression as the price for being elected.
I will be posting more details about the New Witch Hunt and how it intersects
with election 2008 over the next few days. Tomorrow, the story of Debbie
Almontaser, hounded out of a job as a school principal by bigoted fanatics.
END ARTICLE
