Time to stop being the armchair political activist, looking up theory, holding discussions on the undemocratic nature of the current regime and on and on. The icon to the left (is it not beautiful) is a reminder of another nation that attempted to move towards democracy- and ultimately failed. American society has already met the same end. I am now in the process of documenting the history of that end. The Roots Of Fascism
` Why a single payer system based on Medicare is the wrong solution to our medical care mess. An HTML version is available.	Is Multiculturalism sufficient to move us forward on the human rights front? Or on any front?
Action plan for moving America towards democracy	Archives 2nd Level

• Americans should look to the rest of the world as partners in peaceful action. We should stop being so self centered.
• A reasonable person would look at the problems the world is having in general and decide to do something about them, there is more to life than sitting in front of the television or computer
• Some of the major issues the world faces
  • Overpopulation is causing huge problems environmentally
    • Most of the greatest world wide problems, starvation, environmental degradation, are related to overpopulation.
    • Until this issue is addressed single mindedly, attempts to arrive at solutions to every other issue, including the one of enforcing international justice, will fail.
  • Toxic substances from manufacturing, waste disposal, over use of resources, are poisoning the planet and every one on it.
  • Political corruption so overwhelms every continent, especially Africa, that some form of international law enforcement needs to be set up.
• The U.N. needs to be reformed so representation is more proportional and the legislative body should be given the power of enforcement-something like a Federation of Nations that would see that criminal justice is pursued against anyone-including leaders-who violate the law.

1. We can decide what to do about these issues; sitting around debating or reading about the latest scandal will not do

We could just continue towards the edge of the cliff

If we are unable to exert any control over the selection of political ends, and how we will move towards those ends, then what reason is there to live? If the goods that we all hold to be the most important, Life, Liberty and pursuit of happiness, are withheld from us then what reason is there to live? And yet that is exactly what is being done within the realms of the current regime.

America has a long history of fascination with the military and understanding the militarization of American life is what really allows a person to understand American History.

In a book that outlines the history of America's love hate relationship with war, In the Shadow of War, Michael Sherry summarizes the thoughts of a few political elites in Washington as the country planned its entry into WW II after the attack on Pearl Harbor:

Complex and ambitious, this apparatus was also notable

National Security Government Gone Tragically Astray: a review of Angus MacKenzie's book, Secrets, The CIA’s War at Home

The background to MacKenzie's book is Harold Koh’s The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power after the Iran-Contra Affair. Koh identifies the tremendous swing of power to the Executive office that took place after the 1947 law was written into the national statutes, authorizing a select body of military and civilian elites to coordinate military planning with foreign policy.
From the State Department’s web site
The Council itself included the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and other members (such as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency), who met at the White House to discuss both long-term problems and more immediate national security crises. A small NSC staff was hired to coordinate foreign policy materials from other agencies for the President. Beginning in 1953 the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs directed this staff. Each President has accorded the NSC with different degrees of importance and has given the NSC staff varying levels of autonomy and influence over other agencies such as the Departments of State and Defense.
    MacKenzie outlines how the language of the National Security act was used by powerful people in the CIA during the time of the Vietnam war protests, to censor, harass, imprison, and illegally gather intimate information on many American citizens. The quote below looks rather dense but think about words like 'ensure the protection of intelligence sources' or 'unauthorized disclosure.'
From the Code itself.

The Director shall prescribe appropriate security requirements for personnel appointed from the private sector as a condition of service on the Council, or as contractors of the Council or employees of such contractors, to ensure the protection of intelligence sources and methods while avoiding, wherever possible, unduly intrusive requirements which the Director considers to be unnecessary for this purpose.
c) HEAD OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY. - In the Director's capacity as head of the intelligence community, the Director shall -
(7) protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure;
. . . .
(4) The Secretary of Defense shall prescribe regulations governing the exercise of authority under this section by elements of the Department of Defense, including regulations relating to the protection of sources and methods in the exercise of such authority. RESTRICTIONS ON INTELLIGENCE SHARING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS
SEC. 112. [50 U.S.C. 404g] (a) PROVISION OF INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS. -
(1) No United States intelligence information may be provided to the United Nations or any organization affiliated with the United Nations, or to any officials or employees thereof, unless the President certifies to the appropriate committees of Congress that the Director of Central Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, has established and implemented procedures, and has worked with the United Nations to ensure implementation of procedures, for protecting from unauthorized disclosure United States intelligence sources and methods connected to such information.
2) The requirement for periodic reports under the first sentence of paragraph (1) shall not apply to the provision of intelligence that is provided only to, and for the use of, appropriately cleared United States Government personnel serving with the United Nations.
(c) DELEGATION OF DUTIES. - The President may not delegate or assign the duties of the President under this section.
(d) RELATIONSHIP TO EXISTING LAW. - Nothing in this section shall be construed to -
(1) impair or otherwise affect the authority of the Director of Central Intelligence to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure pursuant to section 103(c)(6) of this Act; or
(2) supersede or otherwise affect the provisions of title V of this Act.

MacKenzie shows how that first paragraph, quoted above was used to move us towards a police state: “The Director shall prescribe appropriate security requirements for personnel appointed from the private sector as a condition of service on the Council, or as contractors of the Council or employees of such contractors, to ensure the protection of intelligence sources and methods while avoiding, wherever possible, unduly intrusive requirements which the Director considers to be unnecessary for this purpose.” Pretty scary-what exactly are ‘appropriate security requirements?’ Turns out as MacKenzie documents, just about anything the CIA thinks is appropriate. The secrecy level in this country continues to spiral upward and criminalization of plain old fashioned talking has escalated as well. I've quoted some of what MacKenzie has to say below to show what he's talking about; the highest ranking officers of CIA, after 1967 in particular, began to turn the American political culture into a police state. The CIA, in moving to control and spy on Vietnam war protestors, gathered the most intimate kinds of details on American’s lives and kept those details in files that are still being held today. That spying effort on us has not abated, needless to say.

In the decades that followed the passage of the 1947 National Security Act, the CIA would become increasingly involved in domestic politics, abridging the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and press; it would spy on law-abiding American dissidents, tell the Internal Revenue Service to investigate political “enemies” of the Agency, and attempt to silence news reporters and news publications in order to keep the American public from learning that the 1947 law was being systematically violated. Moreover, more than four million employees and contractors of the United States government would be prevented from disclosing matters of wrongdoing, large or small, because the 1947 act would be interpreted as an endorsement of widespread censorship.

The links below show current topics that are sometimes forgotten by Americans.

Links The biases of the press exposed: FAIR will set you straight if you think such a thing as Freedom of the Press still exists Agency of Rogues how the CIA works daily to further move us down the road to a police state. Actually, we're already there. Secrets: The CIA's War at Home FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available as part of my efforts to advance an understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 8:25 PM “ Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.”         Frederick Douglass, 1857