Titanic Post

By Ken Nicholson

The ten steps are:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

Have a nice day!

Pocket Paradigm

About the most important job of a democracy — next to serving its people — is to make sure it stays a democracy. Forms of government don’t have tenure, and governments that rely on the consent of the governed — rather than, say, on tanks and prisons — particularly require constant tending. As things now stand, we could easily become the
first people in history to lose democracy and its constitutional freedoms simply because we have forgotten what they are about.

Today, almost every principle upon which this country was founded is being turned on its head. Instead of liberty we are being taught to prefer order, instead of democracy we are taught to be follow directions, instead of debate we are inundated with propaganda. Most profoundly, American citizens are no longer considered by their elites to be members or even worker drones of society, but rather as targets - targets of opportunity by corporations and of suspicion and control by government.

~ Sam Smith, Progressive Review

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. . . Orwell feared the truth would be concealed from us, Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. In 1984. . . people are controlled by inflicting pain, in Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that we hate what will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

~ Neil Postman

Activists fear they’ve become FBI targets
By GREGORY D. KESICH, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald Thursday, October 26, 2006

The FBI has released more documents connected to Maine peace groups, leading local activists to say they have been targeted for surveillance for opposing the government.

Last January, a single e-mail from a Canadian anarchist group that had been circulated by Maine peace activists was released by the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

Now more e-mails discussing plans for anti-war demonstrations outside the Brunswick Naval Air Station and Bath Iron Works during the summer of 2005 have been declassified and returned to the MCLU. The message originated with members of Peace Action Maine and Maine Veterans for Peace, but it is impossible to tell how they ended up with the FBI. (more…)

Published on Friday, October 27, 2006 by Agence France Presse

Confession That Formed Base of Iraq War was Acquired Under Torture: Journalist

An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after being tortured, a journalist told the BBC.

Iban al Shakh al Libby told intelligence agents that he was close to Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and “understood an awful lot about the inner workings of Al-Qaeda,” former FBI agent Jack Clonan told the broadcaster.

Libby was tortured in an Egyptian prison, according to Stephen Grey, the author of the newly-released book “Ghost Plane” who investigated the secret US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons that housed terror suspects around the world.

US President George W. Bush confirmed the existence of the network of CIA holding facilities overseas during a September 6 speech defending controversial US interrogation practices. (more…)

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.

~ German Proverb