December 7, 2007
by Robert W. Barker
On the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorist Prevention Act" and other threats to our liberty
Dissident voices hone our sense of liberty and attempt to bring social inclusion to our nation. They guide us towards the ultimate ideal, force us to face our cultural demons, and help garner deeper national introspection.
With the advent of Free Speech Zones, the Patriot act, and the latest rights damaging legislation called the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorist Prevention Act," we are witnessing the systematic weakening of American dissidence, and the beginnings of censored Internet.
Precedent of American Dissent from then until now
The United States was born of dissidents, and improved step by step by their substance, fortitude, determination and consistent voices. Can we afford to let American dissidence die?
Independent-minded agrarian Colonists grew sick and tired of remote governments taxing and abusing the local citizens; therefore they founded the United States through dissent and revolution. Despotism handed out in the name of Monarchs, Aristocrats and Organized Religion were no longer tolerable to a people that had eked out a living in a wide-open frontier where the law was generally based on common sense. Self-made citizens less encumbered with the Aristocratic social order grew self-sufficient and proud, and far less in awe of the British Crown. Frontiersmen that developed an independent streak as land owners grew emboldened and naturally fermented dissent when they felt repressed.
Our Innovative "common man's empowerment" and self-determining attitude contained philosophical roots as well as geographical ties, these founders were abiding in the "Age of Reason" and the sway of the "French Enlightenment."
Many early American thinkers read John Locke's Religious toleration letters and Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws enlightening them to Individual Liberty in its most vaulted position. They studied Voltaire and Rousseau and his paradigm of "General Will" and "rule by consent of the governed" and "humanities inalienable rights" to life liberty and happiness.
John Stewart Mill and his model of "sacred individual liberties" often absorbed by the founders and incorporated into the fabric of American political philosophy. In this frontier environment, the humanist canon caught fire in the American Colonies, where fertile ground awaited liberating ideals, and the forward-thinking founders embraced a republic and democracy introduced by the Iroquois and Greeks.
These aforementioned Nation creators planted a seed, which grew into the tree of independence and ripened into a vast new crop of liberty for the individual. American frontier intellectuals formed "a more perfect union" in the USA. A union that is established on an innovative principle at that time, and that is "government that serves the people", not the other way around.
Further, it is inherent in this "American populous system" that the people should be able, nay required by solemn duty, to dissent; in order to ensure that governments are just and not repressive. It is our responsibility to voice our minds and even display civil disobedience if the scales of justice are tipping in a negative direction.
Our Founders formed a "Republic" from the Latin "res-publica" or "things public."
Therefore, they had an inherently-built in populist bent, and early on they envisioned a politically active population with powers of consent and dissent; commencing at the initial launch of this democratic republic. The government should fear the people, not the people fear the government; this is tantamount to a rule; "By the People."
The Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution - especially the first ten Constitutional Amendments - are all guarantees for a powerful "citizens' voice." Those sacred Instruments of individual liberation contain guaranteed civil liberties that are inalienable and not circumvented by any form of trepidation or government.
American inspiration through the strength of the powerful people
Our open system boasted to the world of the "vox populi" or people's voice - and our dissident citizens and obvious liberties have given hope to suppressed peoples across the globe for over two centuries. There is no way to estimate the total number of human beings that held out hope all over the globe in repressed places because of the power of the American people.
One Russian Cold War scholar named Vladislav Zubok has pointed out that it was an epiphany to the people of the Soviet Union when they heard about the American protesters that were taking to the streets in opposition to the Vietnam War in the sixties. According to Zubok that was the beginning of the death of government planted mistrust of the United States; the Russian people gained a respect for the democratic process that nothing else could have engendered.
This is what makes America powerful and envied - not just our military power or commercial base but our politically powerful people.
Many Dissident heroes honed our most admirable philanthropic image
As we look back at our collective American history it was often the dissenters that were our cultural heroes. As mentioned most the founders were called dissident radicals or even subversives and finally revolutionaries, all because they wanted to improve their lives and exist independent of outside influence.
Abolitionists grew in popularity as the awareness of the horrid practice of forced labor was exposed. William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stow, William Wilberforce, Fredrick Douglas and others - all considered radical dissidents by many contemporaries - yet heroes by others. Slavery demeaned the entire libertarian human rights principle we stood for, and it took massive bloodshed to correct this grievous oversight by the founders.
Later, Women's rights and equality took hold and brought out the female dissidents, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stanton and others fought for women's suffrage rights. Women continue to struggle in many places today and even in the USA the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified.
Civil rights for all citizens were established by law through the efforts of dissidents such as Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, M. Evers, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, in the USA. And peaceful dissidents like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela in the International scene, as well as many other dissidents for equality, they fill the pages of our history. The early-sixties protesters Marched in Selma, Alabama and other places, and gained voting rights to an entire disenfranchised population of African Americans in the Jim Crow South.
Civil disobedience brought the injustice of the VietNam War to the public attention; and the sixties made a citizen's civic responsibility the "In thing" and politics were suddenly enjoyable. Music became the voice of dissidence through protest and anti war songs; the politically aware bards of the sixties like Bob Dylan or Richie Havens helped to propel the dissident message, and made us further introspective and aware.
Our diminishing liberties and the latest Neo Con stifling of dissent
Today we are experiencing another type of counter revolution, one based on feigned or exaggerated fear and actual avarice. A new paradigm emerges where "dissent" is no longer encouraged. Dissenting voices are marginalized at best and at times not even tolerated. Suddenly through the Neo Conservative party line and rabid right radio talk show hosts and corporate media, our most cherished national attribute has been deemed "un American" when actually "involved dissent" it is the most American thing we can do.
The standard of the "people's voice" is being subjugated and weakened, disdained and even referred to as unpatriotic, when the genuine patriots are always the ones standing up to governmental tyranny.
The most patriotic action one can take is standing up to injustice or poor policy.
New Threats to freedom on the horizon from Democrat Jane Harmon
Terror, fear, and reactionary attitude is catching on - now the fear-filled Democrats are also urging a fatal blow to our liberty. Just as we thought the Patriot act was the nastiest legislation imaginable, we hear of new deeper attacks on liberties and the Constitution. Overwhelming bipartisan support for Ca. Dem Rep. Jane Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" is an indication of the depth of the problem.
This law quietly passed the House 404-6 in October and now awaits approval in Sen. Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee - and is in some ways it is far worse than the Patriot Act. Quick Senate passage appears certain, and few Americans are aware of its impact.
Not since the "Patriot Act" of 2001 has legislation so endangered our constitutionally protected rights. Ms. Harman thinks it likely that the United States will face a homegrown brand of terrorism in the not so distant future, and tenders an arrangement to stop ideologically based violence. Are we false-alarming our way to suppression and slaughter of Constitutional liberties for a few "possible" homegrown terrorists in the future?
This plan is a bigger peril to American freedom than the threats Ms Hanson fears. Her bill flattens constitutional rights by producing a commission with sweeping exploratory power and a mandate to recommend laws prohibiting whatever the commission tags as "homegrown terrorism."
Ms. Harman's proposal includes an "illogical assault on the Internet," criticizing the Internet for providing Americans with "access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda," and legalizes an insidious infiltration of targeted organizations. The misnomer called "Center of Excellence," commission is disbanded in 18 months, so this gives the appearance of an intellectual scientific study to what is in political reality, the suppression of dissent.
Joe McCarthy would have been proud of Ms Harmon's policy. In fact, in her bill she crafts a group that would search out dissidents. We are creating a "thought police" in the USA by this dangerous legislation; proposed for a nonexistent enemy that may or may not be a threat in the future.
Ms. Harman insists that her bill is "not a threat" to the First Amendment.
The Bill plainly states that no measure to prevent homegrown terrorism should violate "constitutional rights, civil rights or civil liberties." However, can we actually trust this government or future governments to act in a responsible manner when they have the power to kill our civil liberties?
It's not the abuse of power we should be most concerned with. But rather, the power to abuse.
A march of a few hundred people to sway reform for say illegal immigrant reform, or pro choice, civil liberties, or whatever, and these new judges can "perceive that to be a use of force to intimidate the people, courts or government" and then the protesters are considered terrorists. The bill defines "violent radicalization" as promoting an "extremist belief system."
Nonetheless, it is American governments, state and national, who have a history of using fundamental "belief systems" and violence to facilitate social change.
In a diminishing stratum of liberty minded folks, many diverse groups properly oppose Ms. Harman's endeavor to stifle dissent. Regrettably, the mainstream media and the so-called leading presidential candidates remain silent, and the insidious maneuvers go unnoticed.
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More attacks on our freedoms ignored by a misinformed, apathetic public
In another stealth diabolical maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a condition which, according to Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, will actually "promote the President to declare federal martial law."
It does so by amending the "Insurrection Act" - a set of edicts that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act has in the past, along with the "Posse Comitatus Act," helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
With a masked and almost media-free stroke of his pen, Mr. Bush is seeking to undo those traditional prohibitions, and his subversive objectives are obviously not Islamic terrorists but dissenting Americans.
This is the so called "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" which was signed by our manipulating commander in chief in October 2006, (in a hush-hush Oval Office ritual) they buried long accepted precedent to protect the dissenting public.
This allows the selected President to proclaim a "public emergency" and position troops anywhere in the USA and take Federal command of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the local authorities, for the express purpose of "suppressing public disorder." President Bush seized this unparalleled usurping of power on the exact day that he signed the similarly abhorrent "Military Commissions Act of 2006" - an internationally-focused authorization to torture or detain anyone they deem "dangerous."
In a sense, the two laws harmonize with one another....I can hear it now, the sweet tones of coming suppression.
One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to implement total compliance in the USA. Is Mr. Bush preparing to order the military onto the streets of America? There is a better known term for this move and its called, "martial law."
The huge Authorization Act awards the Pentagon 500 billion for public emergencies which include massive protests, and also states that the president may employ armed forces to end and assist in "major public emergencies."
This law by Warner gives President Bush, "power of enforcement of the laws to reinstate public order" and that means to requisition guardsmen or law enforcement personal from any given state, city or county, regardless of the objections of local government.
Mr. Bush can then dispatch these requisitioned troops or police to another state; engage them in a law enforcement role; and turn them loose against "unruly" citizenry.
We can assume that means protesters, illegal aliens, or those who might object to forced vaccinations, quarantines, in the occassion of a bio-terror occurrence, or other public safety concerns.
The law also makes possible massive police arrest and detention of protesters, and so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already under construction by Halliburton.
That's correct ladies and gentlemen; Halliburton is building and preparing to run concentration camps for Americans.
Beneath the swathe of a false "immigration emergency" and the frantic fear-driven militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being built while we sleep at the wheel. Concentration camps built to concentrate on repression of dissent intended for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic program of the administration and its Neo Con manipulators.
Free speech Zones?
Protest and dissent - two of the strongest and most empowering processes available to a democratic republic - are marginalized and sent to "free speech zones" away from the political activities and media. These "free speech zones" are used so that our dissident voices are weakened and relegated to a small circle far away from the events. People and media that need to hear these protests and once more perceive America as an open place where dissent is tolerated and even admired.
All of America was established as a free speech zone, in every nook and cranny of every state, and we are allowing this isolation of dissenters to squelch our own collective voice. The sound of liberty diminished, disdained and alone; without much opposition at all, we become the willing victims. Wearing a t-shirt that expresses a counter opinion is basis enough for arrest or expulsion from taxpayer sponsored events in the Neo Con Bush world.
Demise of the rule of Habeas Corpus has occurred due to our fears, the Neo Con repression and "The War on Terror" or perhaps better put, the terror of the ruler has circumvented the rule of law.
Privacy as described in the Fourth Amendment has been reduced to omitted by wiretaps of millions of American citizens, reducing FISA rules to muck - all this and more with "Islamic terror" as rationalization. Does anyone imagine there are millions of terrorists in the USA? Of course not, and this overreaching and exaggerated fear is the very reason we need controls for governmental eavesdropping. In short, we need more control over the government - and not the other way around.
The powers that be preach fear as a method of tainting and weakening the raw American spirit, "beware of those that sermonize on fright on every occasion." Secret prisons, torture in the name of the liberated, and weakening of the Vox populi; all tolerated for the fear mongers and dissent squelchers.
Today I wonder, would we hear the voices of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison? Would they be marginalized or perhaps locked up in secret prisons with no inalienable rights? Are we allowing this un-American abhorrence of dissent to become pervasive and accepted?
I hear the founders wailing in the wind; thunder rolls down from heaven in American agony as they watch their experiment with the rights of all people driven into repressive forms by the singular power of trepidation.
We should applaud the dissident people that stand up on all sides, like for instance those that want the "Ten Commandments" to be posted in public places, or those that scream for school prayers. I do not necessarily agree with their stand, and I appreciate it is in some ways an attack on another grand American paradigm, and that is "separation of church and state." However as a devotee of liberty I applaud their rights to take that stand. Gun owners are now a sort of dissident, as we see the backlash of the increase in violence blamed on the weapons, not the trigger pullers, and the right to bear arms challenged.
Press and information
The Sprit of Dissent dies with an uninformed public that thinks things are fine because the media tells them just what they want them to hear, unless it leaks. Spins on the truth and twists on the reality are common and the American people dwell in a foggy mundane slumber. The zealousness for dissent fades away to the delight of the fear mongering manipulators.
Our Internet
Thank Liberty for the open, candid Internet. In today's world it remains one of the last, nay only, bastions of liberated speech. There are ongoing attempts to stifle this medium of open gratis communication such as the Harmon Bill, but as of yet it has fallen on deaf ears, or an angry public. Soon Joe Lieberman will push this through the Senate and we will lose one of our last bastions of free speech.
The Voice of freedom of expression and information is alive on the Internet, and our founder's ideals live there more than any major newspaper or media network. We are blessed with an open forum that is tough to control; an unhindered voice to each other and the world; a refuge of dissidents, autocrats, conspiracy believers, right wing zealots, and anarchists; essentially everyone.
Within cyberspace we are open to all opinions, and even those that are appalling to many.
The internet is truly the "vox popularis."
However if the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act" is enacted, and it looks like it will be, the Internet will no longer be the liberty instrument we all love. And if the Neo Con bus continues to roll on without real opposition, our good old American Dissident sprit will fade into historical insignificance..
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Robert W. Barker [send him email] is a writer, professional photographer and travel aficionado from Eureka Ca. His work is carried on many web sites around the globe, a first novel recently copyrighted in the library of Congress, is soon to be published.
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