It's More Than Just War Crimes. Please Read.

[prostock69]

If ALL of what the Bush Administration is not brought to full light, we will have a repeat of what we incurred the past 8 years. There are several million people who have no idea of the horrific crimes they have perpetrated. They have no idea that Bush and his Admin. was trying to turn our country into a police state to be controlled by the Christian Right in their preparation for a full-scale holy war with the Muslims. If any of you haven't watched Naomi Wolfe's You Tube Interview with Democracy Now regarding her book "The End of the America, A Letter to a Young Patriot", I highly suggest you do. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH5U-BPJor4

Her book is about how to shut down a democracy in 10 steps that have been performed by all the famous dictators: Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Mussolini, etc. The coup leaders used present fear and instilled more fear of possible enemy attack from inside and outside of their countries, declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody ALL WHILE THEIR ECONOMIES WERE DYING. Take away the wealth of the nation and put it in the hands of those who want to rule and you have people who have to rely on their government for everything which makes it so much easier to control them. Sound familiar? Below are the 10 steps:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a Gulag (Outside prisons to be used for torture and interrogation) (
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

The following link has an article that gives examples of how the Bush Administration has done most of the above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

Bush was enacting laws to make it easier to do all of these things. Congress is retarded and has no idea what they were signing. Americans were so freaked out after 9/11 that we would have let Bush do just about anything to keep them safe. This opened the door for him to do what he has done the past 8 years. Why do you think Sarah Palin was handpicked to be VP? McCain didn't want her. Her and Bush share one obvious characteristic: Christian Rapture Loving Nuttiness. She is the perfect empty headed robot that could be easily controlled and manipulated into doing whatever the Cheney/Rove machine wanted. Look how Rove used her during the campaign! She had people convinced that Obama was a Muslim and had terrorist ties! Instill fear in people with false accusations. Divide the people to make it easier to control them. Hmmmm. She was Bush's planned successor. All they would have had to do was hope McCain died or kill him so she could step in. We would have never known the difference since he had a history of illness. Now imagine having her in the White House being controlled by Rove and the network of other people we don't know about that want a full-scale holy war to wipe the muslims off the face of the earth so their beloved "Jesus" could come back. I could easily picture Sarah giving orders to round up ALL the American Muslims and have them detained as enemy combatants of the state and "interrogated", in off-site prisons which we have already in place, which she could have done easily thanks to the laws that were enacted by Congress at the request of Bush. He could do that to any one of us. Scarey. All this needs to be reversed immeditately. I hope and pray that Obama does this within his first year as President and enacts new legislation to prevent this from happening again. Speaking of which: Ron Paul (R-Tex) has submitted HB 3835 "American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007" that reverses a lot of what Bush has done. Link here: http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/finally-action-ron-pau_b_69042.html

Whether you want to admit it or not, Bush and his thugs were systematical shutting down our society using fear and the threat of terrorism by using coined words such as "sleeper cells", taking away our rights (gay marriage was just a start), controlling the press (Fox News and censoring the internet), harrassing people (being put on the "watch list" at airports, being arrested after peacefully protesting outside the Republican National Convention) Hell, the attorney I worked for 2 years ago in Fort Worth, Texas was on the watch list and he had no idea why. He had a hell of a time getting through security. Well looking back, I know why: He was an Democrat and he was a "pillar" of the legal community in DFW. He was a threat to the Republicans because he contributed money to campaigns.

When the above steps were happening in Germany at the time of Hitler's rise, there were many apologists who dismissed people's worries that he was trying to take over the country. There were warning bells going off left and right that were IGNORED and DOWNPLAYED until it was too late. We can't afford to rest on our laurels just because Bush is on his way out. "They" will try to regain control so "They" can continue their religious agenda. Being a Christian Rapture Loving Nut Job doesn't go away just because you are no longer in power. Obama is going to be attacked from every angle by these people. He knows it. He's seen what Bush was trying to do and why. The only way we are going to keep this from happening again is to root them ALL out and bring them to justice. We the people need to keep the pressure on our elected officials to do just that. We also need to enforce Separation of Church and State. When a Church starts to influence government, letters need to be written to our representatives immediately. I am no longer going to be sitting back doing nothing like I have been the past 8 years. My head has been up my ass, too busy with my life to even care. Do you know what woke me up and made me take notice? Sarah Palin. She completely assaulted my sense of right. I am a woman with strong intuition. I knew she was bad news. And she still is. She scares me to death. What scares me more is there are people in this country, millions of them, who want her to be president.

Also, if you haven't seen the documentary, TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, please take the time to rent it. It won an Academy Award last year for Best Documentary. It's an in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.

Further, below is a list of a few books that can further educate people on what has been happening:

The End of America: A Letter to a Young Patriot
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror
Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in the Time of Terror
Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of the American Democracy
Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (This one I highly recommend).

[seemslikeadream]

1. What has happened.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. K&R

[ColbertWatcher]

3. k+r, n/t

[specimenfred1984]

4. A huge problem is there are 2 types of dems:

Type 1: let 'em go, offer them "redemption", deluded themselves into thinking the same crimes won't happen again,

and

Type 2: You, me and others who want justice in the name of law, morals and everything decent.

Guess which one outnumbers the other here in Amurikkka?

[Zhade]

5. #1 is the type who let Iran-Contra fade without going after the masterminds.

Which is, of course, why some of the EXACT SAME PEOPLE wound up in THIS b*b* administration!

[Life Long Dem]

6. And I wouldn't let the media off too easy.

[Road Scholar]

7. K&R nt.

[Beam Me Up]

8. What puzzles me is

how you know all this and yet, apparently, have no suspicions regarding 9/11 -- or, if you do, you keep them to yourself.

It puzzles me because I see it all the time. People know this is the most corrupt, dishonest and secretive administration of all time and yet give them a complete pass on 9/11 itself. Fact is, though, no steel framed skyscraper had ever "collapsed" due to fire before (or since) 9/11. And certainly none at near free-fall speed, with such explosive force, leaving pools of molten metal beneath them for weeks afterward. Where did all that extra energy come from? If one looks at all the evidence for controlled demolition, there can be little doubt about it. AND YET, no one wants to look, much less talk about it. Not the government, of course (who are hard-pressed with the job of keeping it covered up). Not the media, who take their cues from the government. Not the "left" or "liberals" who don't want to be associated with "conspiracy theories". You talk about the threat of history repeating itself if the truth isn't exposed and yet, apparently, you yourself aren't willing to either look at or talk about how deep the rabbit hole goes. So, good luck with that.

9/11 is their Achilles heel -- and by "their" I don't just mean the Bush cabal -- I mean those who put them there and kept them there and who aren't 'going away' when * leaves office. But if no one is willing to tackle that, to use the truth that is there to drive a stake through its evil heart, then none of us will ever be safe from their tyranny.

[Marnieworld]

9. If I'm not mistaken you should add The Shock Doctrine to your list

I believe that is part of the tactics to achieve this overall goal. Naomi Klein.

Excellent post!

[prostock69]

10. I would also like to add

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. Published in November 2007 by Michelle Goldberg

From a reader's review of this book:

"Overall, Kingdom Coming is a very good political book about one of the most critical social issues of our time. The Religious Right and its many members and organizations may not ever succeed at making the United States government an all- out theocracy. But its ability to chip away at personal freedom should be viewed with concern by all Americans. Like Goldberg states plainly, the American way of life and Constitutional guarantees are at stake. Once a few rights have vanished, the road will be paved for further erosion of basic liberties as the nation inches closer and closer to religions/fascist- style of government rule."

"This book is rich in intellectual history. In the first chapter, Goldberg explains Dominionism, which holds that Christians have the god-given right and duty to be sovereign over one's country, if not the entire world. This idea derives from Christian Reconstructionism, which argues that American law should be replaced by Biblical law."

"You will learn about many important figures in the intellectual origins of Christian Nationalism. This includes the following thinkers and writers:
* R. J. Rushdoony, the profoundly influential prolific writer who wrote that homosexuals, blasphemers and unchaste women should be sentenced to death as well as insisted that Jesus Christ would not return until Christians establish a thousand-year reign on Earth. Rushdoony is the father of Christian Reconstructionism.
* Francis Schaeffer, whose 'Christian Manifesto' argued that history is a contest between two antipodal forces: the Christian worldview and a materialist (secular) worldview, that the U.S. was founded on a Christian Consensus and that any public official who "commands what is contrary to God's Law ." Unfortunately, Goldberg only speaks of Schaeffer for a little over two pages.
* David Barton, a Christian revisionist historian who writes extensively on how the separation between church and state is a myth and that the founding fathers intended for basic biblical principles to permeate public life.
* Marvin Olasky, a prolific writer who is considered the founder of Compassionate Conservatism. One of Olasky's major works, 'The Tragedy of American Compassion', argues that there was a golden age of social services provided by churches until the secular government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt made social welfare the government's responsibility. President George W. Bush cites Olasky as his leading influence for funding faith-based initiatives."

I'm sorry, but I'm scared and it's not going to go away because Obama is the president. I don't know what we can do to keep these people at bay except for telling everyone about what almost happened to our country so it doesn't happen again.