U.S. Path Towards Fascism

[Echo In Light]

U.S. Path Towards Fascism

Talk by Naomi Wolf author of "The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" given October 11, 2007 at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. Video and transcript.

Here are U.S. news headlines from a two-week period in the late summer of 2006:

July 22: "CIA WORKER SAYS MESSAGE ON TORTURE GOT HER FIRED." Christine Axsmith, a computer security expert working for the C.I.A., said she had been fired for posting a message on a blog site on a top-secret computer network. Axsmith criticized waterboarding: "Waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong." Ms. Axsmith lost her job as well as her top-secret clearance, which she had held since 1993. She fears her career in intelligence is over.

July 28: "DRAFT BILL WAIVES DUE PROCESS FOR ENEMY COMBATANTS." The Bush administration has been working in secret on a draft bill "detailing procedures bringing to trial those it captures in the war on terrorism, including some stark diversions from regular trial procedures. . . . Speedy trials are not required. . . . Hearsay information is admissible . . . the lawyer can close the proceedings can also order 'exclusion of the defendant' and his civilian counsel." Those defined as "enemy combatants" and "persons who have engaged in unlawful belligerence" can be held in prison until "the cessation of hostilities," no matter when that may be or what jail sentence they may get.

July 29: "THE COURT UNDER SIEGE." In June 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that denying prisoners at Guantánamo judicial safeguards violated the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law. The Supreme Court also insisted that a prisoner be able to be present at his own trial. In response, the White House prepared a bill that "simply revokes that right." The New York Times editorial page warned, "It is especially frightening to see the administration use the debates over the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and domestic spying to mount a new offensive against the courts."

July 31: "A SLIP OF THE PEN." U.S. lawyers issued a statement expressing alarm at the way the president was overusing "signing statements." They argued that this was an exertion of executive power that undermined the Constitution. Said the head of the American Bar Association, "The threat to our Republic posed by presidential signing statements is both imminent and real unless immediate corrective action is taken."

August 2: "BLOGGER JAILED AFTER DEFYING COURT ORDERS." A freelance blogger, Josh Wolf, 24, was jailed after he refused to turn over to investigators a video he had taken of a protest in San Francisco. Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said that, although the jailing of American journalists was becoming more frequent, Mr. Wolf was the first American blogger she knew of to be imprisoned by federal authorities.

August 2: "GOVERNMENT WINS ACCESS TO REPORTER PHONE RECORDS." "A federal prosecutor may inspect the telephone records of two New York Times reporters in an effort to identify their confidential sources. . ." according to The New York Times. A dissenting judge speculated that in the future, reporters would have to meet their sources illicitly, like drug dealers meeting contacts "in darkened doorways."

August 3: "STRONG-ARMING THE VOTE." In Alabama, a federal judge took away powers over the election process from a Democratic official, Secretary of State Worley, and handed them over to a Republican governor: "

arty politics certainly appears to have been a driving force," argued the Times. "The Justice Department's request to shift Ms. Worley's powers to Governor Riley is extraordinary." When Worley sought redress in a court overseen by a federal judge aligned with the Bush administration, she wasn't allowed her chosen lawyer. It was "a one-sided proceeding that felt a lot like a kangaroo court. . ." cautioned the newspaper. She lost.

More: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18570.htm

[ShortnFiery]

1. I think we have arrived?

Don Henley penned the lyrics below 20 years early. :cry:

THIS IS THE END OF THE INNOCENCE

O beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie

But I know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair spill all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence