Fri 28 Dec 2007
Submitted by YOUR NEW REALITY
120,000 Americans Murdered Since 9/11, But Not One Death From Domestic Terrorism
New Anti-Dissent, Anti-Free Speech Laws Disguised As ‘The Fight Against Terror’
The so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ have been harping on about the coming ‘American Police State’ since the early 1990s, three White House administrations ago. Some, like Alex Jones, accurately predicted before 9/11 that a major domestic terrorism event would ease the passage of laws that constitute a police state of the mind and of the judiciary regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the White House.
And now it’s a reality, as this remarkable and downright disturbing story from the Washington Times explains :
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Congress is perched to enact the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 20007 (Act),” probably the greatest assault on free speech and association in the United States since the 1938 creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, the bill passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a 404-6 vote under a rule suspension that curtailed debate.
To borrow from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, the First Amendment should not distract Congress from doing important business.
Denuded of euphemisms and code words, the Act aims to identify and stigmatize persons and groups who hold thoughts the government decrees correlate with homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great Writ of habeas corpus.
The Act will inexorably culminate in a government listing of homegrown terrorists or terrorist organizations without due process; a complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas that ostensibly further “violent radicalization;” and a blacklisting of persons who have intersected with either list.
Political discourse will be chilled and needed challenges to conventional wisdom will flag. There are no better examples of sinister congressional folly.
The Act inflates the danger of homegrown terrorism manifold to justify creating a marquee National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence (Commission) in the legislative branch. Since September 11, 2001, no American has died from homegrown terrorism, while about 120,000 have been murdered.
Prior to September 11, homegrown terrorism consisted largely of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, the Unibomber and the D.C. Metropolitan area snipers. The Act, nevertheless, counterfactually finds “homegrown terrorism … poses a threat to domestic security” that “cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts.”
The commission’s Big Brother task is to discover ideas and political associations, including connections to non-U.S. persons and networks, that promote “violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States.” And “violent radicalization” is defined as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.”
Under the Act, William Lloyd Garrison would have been guilty of promoting “violent radicalization” for publishing the anti-slavery Liberator in 1831, which “facilitated” John Brown.
…Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fallen under the Act’s suspicion for denouncing Jim Crow and practicing civil disobedience….
The commission will certainly hold choreographed public hearings. Witnesses will testify that non-Christian ideas or vocal challenges to the status quo promote “an extremist belief system” that facilitates ideologically based violence. Internet communications, the media, schools, religious institutions and home life will be scrutinized for promoting pernicious thoughts.
Lengthy lists of persons, organizations and thoughts to be shunned will be compiled.
The lives of countless innocent citizens will be shattered.
If you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about, goes the old refrain. But will you actually be told what thoughts and opinions and attitudes are ‘wrong’ or dangerous?
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