I woke up at 4:30 AM to a nightmare that is real. Paid mercenary killers—Blackwater paramilitary mercenaries—the ones that are hired to stalk the worst danger zones of Iraq—are roving the streets of New Orleans, armed to the teeth, with permission to kill.
They have been purportedly hired by the federal and Louisiana governments.
About three years ago, I read Sinclair Lewis’s book, It Can’t Happen Here, which describes how a hayseed good ol’ boy southerner managed by treacherous handlers becomes president. They tear apart one after another American institution—schools, health care, while at the same time appointing politically loyal incompetents with no experience to manage all aspects of US government and other bureaucracies. The media are totally controlled, with uncooperative editors and reporters jailed or killed (Aug. 30th: UN inquiry called for after 18th journalist killed by US troops)
Lewis describes how towns and cities become militarized, how people are sent to jail without trials, or with fixed trials by crooked, corrupt judges appointed by the corrupt president and his cronies. (Jose Padilla and the Death of Personal Liberty)
Gun toting militias terrorize the nation at a local level, with the redneck morons handed leadership roles in every community, with the right to summarily execute people who say the wrong thing. Resistors are threatened with imprisonment or death if they don’t go public supporting the party line.
Lewis wrote his book in 1937, having see Hitler’s rise to Power. We’ve seen many articles describing how similarly the Bush administration has operated, starting with When Democracy Failed by Thom Hartmann. In 2002, Hartmann’s article seemed to reek of conspiracy theory and paranoia to some. Now, it is a frightening portent, characterizing too many parallels suggesting that we are much further along the dangerous road that Sinclair Lewis created as a fiction.
The thought of armed, privately paid mercenaries roaming the streets of a major American city, a city filled with Democrats, with poor, helpless African Americans and the most independent, insistent upon being self-sufficient Americans is horrifying. These guns for hired are reportedly authorized to not only make arrests but also to use “lethal force.”
We know that when hundreds of victims of the levee floods—New Orleans residents and tourists—tried to cross a bridge to safety, police officers from Gretna, in the Jefferson Parish, fired over their heads and forced them back into the flood ravaged, toxic water deluged city.
An American city is under military rule, with citizens being dragged and handcuffed out of their homes, helpless, frail old women thrown around, manhandled, captured and thrown into transport trucks. FEMA has created “detainment camps” which people are not allowed to leave, where they get two meals a day, are not allowed to cook, can’t leave to go to church….
This can not be. This must not be allowed. We must do all we can to end this. President Bush has asked the nation to hold a vigil next Friday. And we must hold one, but not quietly in our churches, temples and mosques. We must go to the streets, raise our voices and tell these betrayers of democracy that it’s over, that they can’t do this. Tell your congregations you don’t want to sit in a building a passively allow this to happen. Wake up your church, your synagogue, temple or mosque and lead them to a local demonstration—a vigil that truly, spiritually supports the victims of both Hurricane Katrina and the Levee Flood Bush’s incompetent appointees and stupid funding withdrawals caused.
America is at risk. You can no longer just read about it. You must do something today, not just donating money or goods to the victims in Mississippi and Louisiana. YOU are a victim of this disaster and you have to ask yourself what you’re going to do today, what you did last week, what you will do next week to save the USA. Do you live in another country? You can still support publications that tell the truth. You can still contribute to private think tanks.
Send your legislators this message. Write to your newspapers. Tell them to end the martial law, the mercenaries and detainment camps.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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and there are Rob's quotes, here.
To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
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If that is really so, the ACLU lawyer should assemble a team of people, invite all the lawyers they can get, bring in the Red Cross Rep, Sen. Obama and all the black Leaders, also Catholic Church. They have to go that place, demand and meet with those people and together with them sign a criminal complaint against this government in the Federal Court as well as in the courts of Lousiana. The international branch of ACLU should file a complaint in the International Criminal Court against FEMA. Furthermore, the lawyers are to move quickly to block the FEMA assets as criminal and terrorist organization under ( yes!) the PATRIOT ACT.
It is not worth to write to Congress- they are all bought or scared. IT IS HAPPENING HERE
And as a matter of fact, I read that book in 1969 when I was 13 and it did not surprise me a bit. The US is a country of Baz Wintrip. Hopefully, it is also a place of Clarence Darrow.
by
Mark Sashine (38 articles, 19 quicklinks, 221 diaries, 3085 comments)
on Sunday, September 11, 2005 at 7:21:41 AM
