How the Left Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the FBI
By Anthony Gregory • Tuesday March 30, 2010 12:46 PM PDT • 71 Comments
At the close of World War I, the federal government created the General Intelligence Division, an agency that eventually morphed into the modern FBI. One of GID’s main tasks was to compile a list of hundreds of thousands of radicals—socialists, anarchists, labor activists and antiwar agitators. Thousands were arrested for being suspected Communists. Hundreds of anarchists were deported to Bolshevik Russia, the silver lining being that left-anarchists like Emma Goldman discovered and wrote about the pure horror of Leninism and the fact that “proletarian dictatorship” was not any sort of improvement upon the wartime corporatism of the U.S. under Woodrow Wilson.
In the late 1920s, the renamed Bureau of Investigation spied on such “socialist” threats as Albert Einstein. Under Franklin Roosevelt, although the FBI continued to keep track of left radicals, it found a new enemy in the form of opponents of the New Deal. FDR used the FBI to spy on multitudes of peaceful rightwingers, unleashing a Brown Scare that was later turned against the left during the McCarthy-era Red Scare. Roosevelt even spied on his Republican presidential opponent, Wendell Willkie.
But during the Cold War, Republican and Democratic administrations again focused the FBI, for the most part, on disrupting the left. Its COINTELPRO operation—a program to “track, expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities” of political radicals—was a great success. FBI’S COINTELPRO forged letters to bring about violence between the Black Panthers and United Slaves. In 1976, a Senate report showed that the FBI had boasted that “Although no specific counterintelligence action can be credited with contributing to this overall situation, it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest [among left radical groups] is directly attributable to this program.”
While the FBI was used to infiltrate rightwing anti-Civil Rights and anti-integrationist activists, it was also targeted against stalwarts of the Civil Rights movement. The FBI monitored everyone from Martin Luther King in the 1960s to John Lennon in the 1970s. In the late 70s, the Church Committee reports in the Senate culminated in some effort to rein in this horribly abusive federal agency.
In the 1990s, the FBI was at the center of the militia scare, with its snipers and strongmen turned against peaceful separatist Randy Weaver and his family, and later at the Waco, Texas, standoff with Branch Davidians, at the end of which FBI agents gassed, shot and killed dozens of David Koresh’s followers at their home at Mt. Carmel. They used incendiary devices, which might have brought on the fire, and then lied about it.
It was in this period that the modern left became enamored of the federal police state and especially the FBI. Almost none of them stood up for the Branch Davidians. They came to think of FBI agents as a professional, national and enlightened force populated by such figures as the Jodie Foster character in Silence of the Lambs, an agency that enforced civil rights, protected the country from “rightwing extremists,” and overturned the injustices of local, prejudiced law enforcement.
But during the Bush II era, when the administration was reported to be reviving COINTELPRO, the left’s distrust of national police forces also became revived. In October 2003, the FBI extensively spied on peaceful Iraq war protesters, focusing especially on “anarchists. . . capable of violence.” Bush’s FBI activities were a throwback to the post-World War I General Intelligence Division’s obsession with anarchists. In 2005, the ACLU sued to reveal in court that it had been monitored by the FBI, which had over a thousand pages of documentation on the organization, as had Greenpeace and other politically leftist organizations. Religious pacifist groups were also spied on and infiltrated. And one “terror plot” after another allegedly discovered and broken up by the administration just in the nick of time turned out to be a group of poor saps of below-average intelligence who had been duped by federal informants into saying something threatening or “planning” a terror attack on American infrastructure with no chance at all of being successful, and probably no chance of having even come up with the idea without federal prodding and agitation. The concern about the return of Cold War-era FBI infiltration of fringe groups was once again seen on the left.
Now we are back to the Brown Scare, to militia hysteria, to fears that the out-of-power anti-government right, Christian groups, separatists, gunowners, opponents of national social programs, census and tax resisters and so forth are a great threat to American security. With all the Bush-era anti-Muslim hysteria and war on terror authoritarianism still in place, we have under Obama a revitalization of 1990s-style paranoia about “hate groups,” survivalists and indeed the entire populist right. Just as Bush conservatives could not differentiate Saddam Hussein from Osama bin Laden, or an innocent Muslim doing charity work in Pakistan from an engineer of 9/11, or an antiwar American activist from an anti-American enemy within giving comfort to the enemy abroad, so too do the Obama leftists conflate peaceful separatists with violent racists, peaceful survivalist militia men with Timothy McVeigh.
Every act of violence or alleged plan to commit violence or even adamant anti-government activism that can be pinned on the “extremist right”—the shooter who murdered a guard at the Holocaust museum, the man who murdered an abortion doctor in church, the man who flew a plane through an IRS building, some “militia” members allegedly planning anti-government violence—all of this is seen as part of a general trend, even a rightwing conspiracy, one about as coherent as the neoconservatives’ lumping together all anti-US Muslims under the banner of “Islamofascism.” Indeed, I am surprised that not many have yet warned of the “Christofascist” threat to America, although there has been plenty of talk comparing the tea party movement to the Nazi brownshirts and talk that this kind of militia activity is often associated with “race war,” even when the particular subjects at hand are not even accused of being racially motivated.
And so when a progressive like Rachel Maddow cheers that the Michigan militia members can be indicted and imprisoned without having done anything violent, when she reports that the FBI has infiltrated this group for months and stepped in to arrest them just in the nick of time, we should not be too surprised when she fails to make the obvious connection, and fails to be the least bit skeptical of the federal government’s police agents infiltrating a group for months only to discover that that group’s members are saying things about government that amount to “seditious conspiracy.” What kind of Orwellian world is it when the government can arrest people accused only of planning to commit violence against government agents and unleash a “civil war” that we all know is only a fantasy? What kind of world is it when the very media figure who denounced Bush’s “preemptive war” and Obama’s adoption of Bush’s “pre-crime” approach to imprisoning “enemy combatants” in “prolonged detention” before they commit violence is happy to see a group indicted on federal charges of talking about committing violence—talk that we can safely guess was likely incited by the very FBI that had been infiltrating this group for months? What kind of absurdist dystopia has the left crying foul when a private citizen infiltrates ACORN, but has no similar apprehensions about the FBI infiltrating “extremist” groups and arresting them for “seditious conspiracy”? How can anyone who saw through the Bush lies of war and crackdowns in the name of “national security” and stopping madmen from getting “weapons of mass destruction” really believe that fewer than a dozen Americans with some rifles and some pipebombs were themselves planning to use “weapons of mass destruction” in any way that posed a threat to the U.S. government? And what about the charge of having weapons in connection to a crime—that crime being the intention of one day committing a crime?
Of course, preempting people from committing acts of criminal violence is just and sometimes necessary, but the list of questionable charges levied at these people, on the tail end of months of FBI infiltration, would seem to be in a different category, and at least warrants more critical examination before passing judgment. One can abhor and condemn the idea of violence and oppose vehemently the types of acts that these men and women are accused of planning—and certainly, I do—while still smelling a rat in the way such sting operations are conducted, or at least demonstrating some journalistic skepticism that the government’s side of the story is 100% accurate and justifies the imprisonment of these people and the hysteria on which this kind of government activity thrives.
But once again, with their people at the helm of state, the left has decided to embrace the FBI, take it at its word, assume that people are guilty until proven innocent once accused of guilt by the police state that they now see as the guardian of order against rightwing extremism. Especially strange is the tendency of leftists to fear rightists out of power even more than in power. The same dynamic can be seen on the other side. The left and the right love power, and although that power is often directed against their own when the other side is at the reins, they cannot abandon the idea that a police state can be pinpointed only against those they hate, and not those with whom they sympathize. The responsible, non-partisan and indeed American thing to do is to harbor extreme skepticism toward the state when it spies, infiltrates, arrests and imprisons anyone, and most especially those whose alleged crime is “sedition” or “conspiracy” or in any way being the enemy of the state.
A note on sources: Much of this history is discussed in Geoffrey Stone’s Perilous Times. A lot of the stuff on the FBI’s history I read years back in Ronald Kessler’s Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. A good treatment of COINTELPRO can be found in James Bovard’s Terrorism and Tyranny. On Waco see Carol Moore’s the Davidian Massacre and my Waco archives. And see the ACLU on some of the surveillance abuses under the Bush administration.
Tags: Civil Liberties, Surveillance, Terrorism, The State, Weapons 
Some sources (or at least where you got the information) would be nice. Not that I doubt much of what is contained here.
Jeremy Nicoll | Mar 30, 2010 | Reply
Excellent analysis!
Lawrence Turner | Mar 30, 2010 | Reply
I wonder how many people the US gov has jailed for what an FBI plant suggested.
Corey Mondello | Mar 30, 2010 | Reply
I’ll try to add some more links later, maybe tomorrow morning.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 30, 2010 | Reply
Rachel Maddow is a liberal, self-confessed, saying she believes in “government.” To distinguish the right and the left on the basis of belief in “government” insults her Rhodes scholarship. Leftists, socialists/communists, either want to transform state power through changing the underlying economic bases of the state. The FBI is a tool of the capitalist state whether it goes after leftists or rightists, populists or party hacks
mark | Mar 30, 2010 | Reply
Under Republican administrations minority violent crime and the threat posed by swarthy foreigners is hyped. Under Democratic administrations the threat of right-wing extremists is hyped. The media is the same media, it just shifts the message to accommodate the purposes of whichever political party is in power. The end result, whether Republicans or Democrats are in power: More cops, more surveillance, more erosion of civil liberties.
Whether ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, the average consumer of mass media comes to view his neighbors as being of greater danger to himself than is the government. People of both political stripes look to the oppressive power of the state to protect them from the other. Classic divide and rule.
Lloyd | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Jim Redden’s Snitch Culture is also helpful material.
persnipoles | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
May be all true. The exact same can be said about the Right Wing when the FBI is attacking the left.
Left that bit out, didn’t you?
The right wing likes less regulation. Except where patents are concerned. Except where regulations stopping people hiring lawyers on contingency when taking on corporations are concerned. They like to see lots of money spent on shiny police uniforms to protect corporation headquarters from protesters.
Brendon | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Took the words right out of my mouth. And then rearranged them and added some so it came out much better than if I had actually said it. Thanks. I also found distressing Amy Goodman’s long completely uncritical interview with SPLC’s intelligence chief Mark Potok in she allowed him to get away with all sorts of nonsense, including that Joseph Stack, who flew a plane in the Austin IRS building, was “clearly mentally ill,” and didn’t question him about SPLC’s involvement in defaming Branch Davidians and infiltration of groups connected to the Oklahoma City bombing. It was inexcusably bad, unethical journalism on her part, but it no doubt seem fine for most of her viewers because the targets are, after all, rightists. I find it very disturbing when anyone’s civil and human rights are violated. I’m far more afraid of the government and its COINTELPRO tactics than I am of right-wing militias. Thanks for this piece.
Lou | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Rachel Maddow is as “left” as Hillary Clinton.
PF | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
I am a lefty and I am horrified at the way the Left has covered itself in shame since the rise of the Dems. It’s just plain disgusting.
Maddow has a Rhodes Scholarship? Wow, I guess having a Rhodes Scholarship signifies ‘ambition-obsessed dunce’.
epppie | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Good piece. Some of my Left friends are waking up to the fact that they should be allies with some of the militia people. But the culture wars seem to stop most people on the “Right” and “Left” from seeing their common cause.
David | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Brendon, the right loves state power too, as I say in this blog, and as I’ve written consistently for years under the Bush administration and to this day.
Anthony Gregory | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Cecil Rhodes was a loathsome eugenicist scumbag.
LTodd | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
I am a leftist and always skeptical of the FBI and its legions of informants regardless of whether their targets are left or right, communist or nazi, or any targets at all that can be deemed “political”.
However, I do not agree with this statement:
“What kind of Orwellian world is it when the government can arrest people accused only of planning to commit violence against government agents and unleash a “civil war” that we all know is only a fantasy?”
For such to be a criminal offense, it has to go beyond talk, and one of the conspirators must commit an overt act (not talk) in furtherance of the conspiracy.
I think it’s perfectly appropriate to arrest people for planning to commit violence against government agents in such situations. The alternative is to sit idly by–knowing of the conspiracy–and waiting until the conspiracy bears fruit, i.e., someone is killed.
And yes, I say this with some degree of skepticism about the feds’ arbitary and abusive use of conspiracy law.
And yes, I would wait until the facts come out at trial.
sleepy | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
You speak the truth, Anthony. I’d naively hoped for a bit better from my left-progressive cohorts during the Obama administration, but with too few consistent exceptions, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Wolf, and Counterpunch, turning a blind eye to and/or smarmly sucking up to police-state tactics is disturbingly widely becoming the new norm.
Phil Leggiere | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
It’s simply an example of the flaw inherent in any democratic system. Factions appear, they are self-interested and seek to eliminate their competition.
Also, power is like a drug which begets a unique fear: the fear of losing said power. Scared humans tend to become irrational degenerates. Survival instincts, I guess.
The only ways to solve the problem are to eliminate the incentives to suppress the other side or eliminate factions. Legalize competition in governance.
John | Mar 31, 2010 | Reply
Thank you very much for a great article. One thing I did not pick up from it was a reference to the FBI’s admission in the Moussaoui “20th hijacker” case that in fact none of the cell phone calls alleged to have been made during 9/11 could have been made; it’s one of the facts that saved Moussaoui from a death sentence. Also, the entire reason for our Afghan invasion rests on a theory for which the FBI says it has “no hard evidence”, i.e., bin Laden masterminded the conspiracy to attack the United States. With these facts in mind and your article, doesn’t it make just feel good all over? Uh, maybe not...
Kathleen | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
It’s incomprehensible that liberals wet their pants over the intrigues of a handful of so-called militias, always supposed to be on the “right”, while thousands of Alinsky adepts now fill our most important government posts. Perennial college “kids” showing what love can do. What fun! Business suits during the week, Che T-shirts on the weekend. But our enemies are grown ups and they are watching all this.
It’s bad enough the FBI wastes taxpayer money infiltrating groups of disaffected cretins, instead of just having the local police round them up, but that doesn’t make for prime time public theater quite like paramilitary assaults of shock troops supported by gunships zeroing in on two house trailers.
I imagine the totally politicized Dept of Homeland Security will be training agents provocateur to work on the Internet targeting its prime suspects for domestic terror, like veterans, pro-lifers, and Ron Paul supporters. The left is nothing if not paranoid, and talking to these nerds is all it takes to see why. We now have the bizarre situation where those running this country and raping its economy are not only are the least willing to defend it, but are the least capable as well.
Dan | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
The FBI infiltrators prey on the sort of “terrorists” who, if told to blow up a bus, would burn their lips on the exhaust pipe.
RichardG | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
The underlying truth found in this deliberately invented schism between the political right and left is exposed by such partisan applications of authoritarian enforcement by the Justice Department. All of this serves to fractionalize the people while enabling our government to continue eroding our liberties on behalf of one faction or the other. In this way such evil is supplied with justification for increased enforcement of laws neither party would ever endorse, much less approve of being used against themselves. The biggest mistake we make is in assuming our overlords are either confused, or just plain stupid. They are masters of manipulation with the combined wealth of the world at their disposal.
Robert Chapman | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
Anthony,
Re: “Of course, preempting people from committing acts of criminal violence is just and sometimes necessary...”
This sounds like the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war applied to domestic crime. Your statement is true when the threat is immediate. This is the standard the law and common sense applies to self defense. For a government of delegated powers acting as the agent of the people, there is a simple mental test case for our ‘public servants’:
If an individual had taken the same action against his neighbors: surveillance, assault, kidnapping, and imprisonment, under the same pretext as our ‘public servants’, would this be socially and legally acceptable? I think we know the answer that both statists and volunteerists would agree that this would be an unjustified use of aggression.
The state holds individuals to very high standards for self defense and the justifiable use of deadly force. We should demand no less of our delegated agents.
That we don’t is a credit to subtle statist, dialectic propaganda about all public servants, that they are somehow special, and that the checks and balances of our republic still function somewhat to keep corruption and predation down among the functionaries of the state. Most people deny that they enable predation through their political beliefs right up until some wolf in a uniform is chewing out their substance.
Cohere | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
I agree with you Phil Leggiere–
With Bush, the gop brand had become too tarnished to act as the voice of corporatism/militarism. Obama is a much slicker frontman for those interests.
And as an added bonus for the status-quo, Obama was able to neutralize most leftist opposition to American militarism and solidify the “unitary executive” concept as bipartisan policy.
sleepy | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
As a long time anarchist, I agree with most of Anthony’s essay. I disagree though, to an extent, that the Left has capitulated. I know plenty of lefties who do not support the FBI or the cops or government. I think the corporate left is statist and the enemy of liberty. The grassroots left is pretty anti-government, and certainly anti-FBI. Outside of a psychological false left-right paradigm that is holding real political action back, another problem is that most people love government, authority, etc, only on their own terms. The same people who want the government to outlaw abortion, want the government to impose certain “moral” standards into law. And vice versa.
Marley Greiner | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
Maddow has a Rhodes Scholarship? Wow, I guess having a Rhodes Scholarship signifies ‘ambition-obsessed dunce’.
Epppie, you took the words right off of my fingers!
liberranter | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
OK, OK. First off, quit lumping us lefties all in together. Doing that is like lumping Eisenhower, Bush Jr., and Dr. Paul all in a single cohesive group.
(Cheers David...the right and the left have a lot more in common...much like the poor Whites in the antebellum South had more in common with the poor/enslaved Blacks than with the White man living in the mansion (NOT like I’m insinuating that the “divide and conquer” mentality that worked so well in the South is being used today, LOL).)
I’m progressive with libertarian leanings (no, not an oxymoron). I take it as an affront that you would throw me into a group with communists.
eppie: Yup, Maddow is indeed a Rhodes Scholar (as is Billy Clinton). Personally, I think she’s rather bright, though she seems to be drinking the Flavor Aid (Google it) now. LTodd is right abut Rhodes. Turns out that the goal of the RS is right out of the CFR et al playbook.
Phil, I too was hoping that Obama would correct the...ethical lapses...of the W administration. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Both sides have been selective in their protesting. Where were the tea partiers when King George the Worst was starting unprovoked wars, inflating the deficit, torturing, and letting Goldman take over the economy? Likewise, progressives seemed to stop progressing once it was Obama continuing (and, yes, escalating) wars, providing passes for the powerful who tortured (and continuing to suspend habeas corpus), and continuing to allow Goldman to rape Uncle Sam.
Dan, it ain’t just the college “kids” wearing Che T-shirts...
“The gentleman second from the right in the picture below, Gerry Pasciucco, heads the AIG Financial Products unit.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/AIG%2BChe.jpeg
And here we are arguing about the merits of health care...I’m calling red herring. (Agree with government health care or not...it’s the least of our problems at this point.)
Small Biggies | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
Brendon, You’re a fool who chooses to believe only one side’s brand of lies.
Brad | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
I haven’t seen much written about how trumped up the charges are in this Michigan militia case. From the way it was described, it sounds like it is a separate crime to have owned guns at the same time as thinking about how to make a bomb. The “weapon of mass destruction” charge is laughable. And it all comes under federal jurisdiction, because getting out of bed in the morning affects interstate commerce.
jl | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
What seems to be missing is the fascinating double standard here. A self described “revolutionary”, admitted bomber and planner of attacks on police, is now a friend and confidant of the POTUS, and ironically an “education professor”.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the similarity. The polar opposite political view does the same thing, indeed, even carries out attacks. He is now an esteemed intellectual. The FBI went after his group as well. Where will the “Hutaree” be in 30 years?
If they show up as advisors to a President the irony will be sweet indeed.
Robert | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
How is the peaceful, civil expression of dissent any of the government’s business? What possible significance is dissent-no matter how “extreme”–to law enforcement authority? If government has any legitimate function at all, it is the protection of life and property from those who would directly and physically agress against them. It is the apprehension and punishment (or at least restitution to victims) of those individuals whose ACTIONS violate the rights of others, regardless of political, religious, racial or other excuse which any government has authority and responsibility for. Politics should NEVER enter into it.
It is shameful and disgraceful that an individual’s political views are even considered by the government’s police and prosecutors, and even more disgraceful that anyone is punished for their dissent!
A government that punishes, or even tries to intimidate dissenters, has no legitimate authority at all! It has indeed become little more than a criminal enterprise, just as contemptible and filthy as the aggressors and terrorists whom it is allegedly fighting.
For Shame, USA!!
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
David K. Meller | Apr 1, 2010 | Reply
I don’t need sources!
Because I’d have to look up the sources to see if you’ve made them up or if they’re reliable.
In which case I’d be better off just researching the entire topic myself, to see if you’re right!
Thank you for the post.
revolutionary | Apr 6, 2010 | Reply
@Small Biggies,
You ask, “Where were the tea partiers when King George the Worst was starting unprovoked wars, inflating the deficit, torturing, and letting Goldman take over the economy?”
Well, the Ron Paul faction of TPs was fighting those very things. It must be the statist, pro-Empire half that you’re thinking about.
Btw,
It doesn’t help that the Left’s leading light, Noam Chomsky, is going off saying things like this:
“I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.”
Source.
mikehell | Apr 22, 2010 | Reply
This country is in my opinion the best going, but is still far from perfect.
The secrecy of course, “preempting people from committing acts of criminal violence is just and sometimes necessary...” can be and is abused on a regular basis.
match a phone number to a person | Aug 5, 2010 | Reply
How accurate would you say this analysis really is?
Donnie Strompf | Feb 10, 2011 | Reply
Yeah. You got a point Anthony.
Remember that DHS “terrorist memo” sent to law enforcement agencies at the dawn-of–the-change-era? The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a progressive police chief to use “Probable Cause” to investigate “potential terrorists” with a Marine or Army or Navy or Air Force or Ron Paul or NRA sticker on their vehicles?
Forgiveable in a perpetual boogeyman hunt. See, you can’t leave a stone unturned when you’re trying to keep a country safe from super terrorists who fly airplanes into tall buildings; a half-dozen of whom are later fingered alive by eye-witnesses.
Pigs fly, too.
I wondered at the time if the federal funny money faucet might have been loosened at bit to help motivate state and local law enforcement “identify terrorist threats” with bumper stickers for the newly elected group of Washington flim flammers who, even then, were beginning to look like every other group shylocks voters sent to Washington.
(What is it behind the curtain that turns honest crooks into monsters bent on tearing down the Constitution when they get elected? Does Oz hand them a stuffed envelope and an anti-Constitutional manual when they get off the plane in D.C.?)
Even the FBI began a similar search in 2009—“Operation Vigilant Eagle”—to identify combat arms veterans as potential threats.
Combat arms veterans as potential terrorist threats? Surely they jest. Or, was that what the veteran’s firearm-purchase disqualifying moniker PTSD was all about?
Issuers of the “bumper sticker terrorist” DHS memo said it was probably “. . . just the musings of . . .an overly partisan DHS employee.”
But wait a minute. . .it looks like. . .maybe. . .yes! An epiphany and the answer!
The regime was simply attempting to compile that age old tried-and-true beltway tactic first started by Lyndon Johnson and Drag Hoover and made famous by tricky Dick—“when-you-got-‘em-by-the-juevos-their-hearts-and-minds-will-follow’—Nixon.
The current neo- (you fill in the blank) radicals have hit upon the not-so-original idea of compiling—ready for this?—an “Enemies List!”
That’s it. Gotta keep an eye on them Constitutionalists. Don’t you go gettin’ no funny ideas about rights ‘n things now, heah?
No doubt about it. That DHS memo was an attempt to turn local and state police into agents for the advancement of a political agenda; one that would brand anyone with a differing political view on their bumper as a “potential threats” or “persons of interest.”
“If you see something, say something;” gibberish that forces one to recall East German where one-half the population spied on the other half.
And the benefits for society of ferreting out “homegrown terrorists” are endless.
Veterans and other law abiding Americans with the wrong bumper or window stickers on their vehicles could have their very own FBI file or at the very least, make the local police blotter data banks for rreference. Once done—and with a little zeal from the right federal agency who monitor bumper sticker data—these same citizens might even have a chance to make the no fly, firearm, food, or mung lists as well.
Remember: All it takes is a Ron Paul bumper sticker on your car or pickup, or an NRA or Marine or Army or Navy or Air Force sticker on your back window and. . .wallah!
When confronted with stickergate, the DHS dismissed it all as “Kook Theory” or rantings of “Right Wing Extremists.”
Until their memo outed them.
And now, all Americans know the category of homegrown terrorists who bear watching.
They’re called voters.
And you never know when one of them “suckers” might go off in a voting booth and cast a ballot for the opposition.
If Katrina and Rita and Ike didn’t confirm this DHS-FEMA bunch is a fence-post shy of the gate, targeting veterans and independents and wingers as homegrown terrorists should.
Thank God an honest federal judge with common sense—long thought to be extinct—handed down a just verdict in the middle of this American Terrorist Kabuki.
Lance Miller | Mar 29, 2012 | Reply