De
federale agenten die willekeurig mensen van de straat plukken en die rondrijden in
‘anonieme auto’s’ zijn gekleed als commando’s waarop als enige
herkenbaar woord ‘Police’ is te zien…… Ik dacht eerder dom genoeg dat
het hier om agenten in burger ging, daar er gewag van werd gemaakt
dat ze niet te herkennen waren, bedoeld werd echter dat deze agenten
geen nummer of naam dragen, zodat je ze later niet ter verantwoording kan
roepen als ze zich te buiten gaan aan ‘ongefundeerd geweld’. (iets dat ‘nogal eens gebeurt’ in de VS als de overheid tekeergaat tegen haar burgers…..)
En dat
gaan deze anonieme federale troepen: tekeer tegen vreedzame demonstranten of gewoon mensen die hen op
straat verdacht voorkomen, daarvoor hoef je bijvoorbeeld alleen maar geheel in zwart gekleed te gaan…… Een veteraan die een
paar van die agenten aansprak daar hij verontrust was over het optreden van deze anonieme troepen, werd ‘behandeld’ met pepperspray
en wapenstok, waarna hij werd afgevoerd in zo’n anoniem voertuig…….. De opgepakte mensen worden naar plekken gebracht waar ze onder bewaking
staan en waar hen verder niets ten laste wordt gelegd en waar ze niet te woord worden gestaan……. En dan
durven de psychopathische oorlogsmisdadigers Trump, Pompeo en andere schoften van Trump’s administratie een
grote bek te hebben over China en Rusland, terwijl de VS hard op weg
is om de grootste politiestaat ter wereld te worden……
John
Whitehead van The Rutherford Institute waarschuwt dan ook dat Trump
en zijn legertje agenten, personeel van o.a. ICE, DEA en van
de grensbewaking, tegen het tiende amendement van de VS grondwet ingaan
en in feite een staatsgreep plegen tegen de staten waarin deze
‘federale agenten’ tekeergaan…….
Whitehead
waarschuwt tegen het gevaar dat dit de voorloper is van een
politiestaat….. Als Whitehead wat beter had opgelet had hij gezien
dat de fundamenten voor zo’n staat al onder George W. Bush werden
gelegd en dat na 9/11……. De VS is in feite allang een
politiestaat, zie de bevoegdheden van de geheime diensten die nu
zelfs VS burgers kunnen oppakken en vasthouden zonder vorm van
proces, inderdaad hetzelfde als de ‘federales’ (federaal personeel) van Trump nu
doen….. Voorts mogen deze diensten iedereen in de gaten houden
zonder daar toestemming voor te vragen, alsmede hun telefoon
afluisteren en de computer van afstand hacken om daar in
rond te pluizen…… Me dunkt, een fiks deel van George Orwells 1984 is
al in vervulling gegaan…… Vergeet daarbij niet dat de Trump administratie al weer teostemming heeft gegeven om verdachten te martelen…..
Zwaar
lullig dat Whitehead voor dit alles met de beschuldigende vinger
wijst naar de zwarten die winkels plunderden tijdens de demonstraties
waar de politie op inhakte….. Als je nagaat dat de gekleurde
bevolking 30% minder betaald krijgt voor dezelfde baan die een witte
vervult, is het niet vreemd dat de nieuwe werklozen hun kans hebben
gegrepen en voedsel en apparatuur hebben gestolen die ze nodig
hebben daar ze geen geld hebben om nieuw te kopen (dat percentage van
30% kan overigens nog hoger zijn, het is een raar gemiddelde waarvan
de ondergrens 30% is, ofwel hoogstwaarschijnlijk ligt het werkelijke
gemiddelde op dik meer dan 30%…) Voorts zou Whitehead moeten weten dat een flink deel van de plunderingen, zeker in aanvang van de demonstraties werden georganiseerd door infiltranten van politie en geheime diensten……..
Trump
was al lang voor de Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesten doende een
burgeroorlog op te stoken met zijn uitlatingen over zijn
tegenstanders: zwarten, latino’s, ‘linksen’ en anarchisten, mensen die hij bij zijn achterban aanduidt als vijanden van het Amerikaanse volk…. Daarbij heeft Trump die achterban, vooral de
plattelandsbevolking in zijn zak, mensen die hij beterschap
beloofde na zijn aantreden, maar waarvan een heel groot deel dat na
meer dan 3 jaar nog steeds niet ziet…… Ach het maakt die mensen
niets uit en als hij ze zou oproepen om de genoemde groepen aan te
vallen, zullen ze dat op zeker doen!! (bovendien: voor hun blijvende ellende wijzen Trump c.s. maar al te graag naar de Democraten als de schuldigen…..)
Lees het
artikel van Whitehead (dat ik overnam van het rechtse Zero Hedge) en zegt het voort, immers ook wij moeten
waakzaam zijn, zeker nu men steeds harder van de toren blaast dat het
aantal besmettingen toeneemt, terwijl dat logisch is gezien het
veel grotere aantal testen, waarvan de uitkomsten zelfs een wachttijd kennen van een paar dagen (testen die overigens waardeloos zouden zijn…..)…. Weer schreeuwen zogenaamde deskundigen om inperking van vrijheden, waarbij men ook
daadkrachtiger wil optreden tegen mensen die er wat betreft het
Coronavirus andere denkbeelden op na houden en die op de sociale
media forse kritiek leveren op het waardeloze hap snap beleid van
Rutte 3 en het meer dan disfunctionerende RIVM…..
Whitehead:
The Federal Coup To Overthrow The States And Nix The 10th Amendment
Is Underway
Authored
by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
– Acting
Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s defense of the Trump
Administration’s deployment of militarized federal police to
address civil unrest in the states
This
is a wake-up call.
What is unfolding before
our very eyes—with
police agencies defying local governments in order to tap into the
power of federal militarized troops in order to put down domestic
unrest—could
very quickly snowball into an act of aggression against the states, a
coup by armed, militarized agents of the federal government.
At a minimum, this is an attack on
the Tenth
Amendment, which affirms the sovereignty of the states and the
citizenry, and the right of the states to stand as a bulwark
against overreach
and power grabs by the federal government.
If you’re still deluding yourself
into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is
anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the
Constitution and reinforce
the iron-fisted rule of the police state,
you need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
This is no longer about
partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.
This
is a turning point.
Unless we take back the reins—and
soon—looking back on this time years from now, historians may well
point to the events of 2020 as the death blow to America’s
short-lived experiment in self-government.
The government’s recent
actions in Portland, Oregon—when
unidentified federal agents (believed to be border police, ICE and
DHS agents), wearing military fatigues with patches that just say
“Police” and sporting all kinds of weapons, descended
uninvited on the city in unmarked vehicles, snatching protesters off
the streets and detaining them without formally arresting
them or offering any explanation of why they’re being held—is
just a foretaste of what’s to come.
One of those detainees was a
53-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was in downtown Portland during
the protests but not a participant. Concerned about the tactics being
used by government agents who had taken an oath of office to protect
and defend the Constitution, Christopher David tried to speak the
“secret” police. Almost immediately, he was assaulted
by federal agents, beaten with batons and pepper sprayed
Another peaceful protester
was reportedly
shot in the head with an impact weapon by this federal goon
squad.
The Trump Administration has
already announced its plans to deploy
these border patrol agents to other cities across the
country (Chicago is supposedly next) in an apparent bid to
put down civil unrest. Yet the overriding
concerns by state and local government officials to Trump’s
plans suggest that weaponizing the DHS as an occupying army will only
provoke more violence and unrest.
We’ve
been set up.
Under the guise of protecting
federal properties against civil unrest, the Trump Administration has
formed a task
force of secret agents who look, dress and act like military
stormtroopers on a raid and have been empowered to roam cities in
unmarked vehicles, snatching citizens off the streets, whether or
not they’ve been engaged in illegal activities.
As the Guardian reports,
“The
incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIA’s
post-9/11 rendition program under George W Bush, where
intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign
countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be
innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of
occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, it’s
happening in downtown Portland.”
The so-called racial
justice activists who have made looting, violence, vandalism and
intimidation tactics the hallmarks of their protests have played
right into the government’s hands
They have delivered all of us into
the police state’s hands.
There’s a reason Trump has tapped
the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection for this dirty business: these agencies are notorious for
their lawlessness, routinely sidestepping the Constitution and
trampling on the rights of anyone who gets in their way, including
legal citizens.
Indeed, it was only a matter of
time before these roving
bands of border patrol agents began flexing their muscles far beyond
the nation’s borders and exercising their right to disregard the
Constitution at every turn.
Except these border patrol cops
aren’t just disregarding the Constitution.
They’re trampling
all over the Constitution, especially the Fourth Amendment, which
prohibits the government from carrying out egregious warrantless
searches and seizures without probable cause.
As part of the government’s
so-called crackdown on illegal immigration, drugs and trafficking,
its border patrol cops have been expanding their reach, roaming
further afield and subjecting greater numbers of Americans
to warrantless searches, ID checkpoints, transportation checks, and
even surveillance on private property far beyond the boundaries of
the borderlands.
That so-called border, once a thin
borderline, has become an ever-thickening band spreading deeper and
deeper inside the country.
Now, with this latest salvo by the
Trump administration in its so-called crackdown on rioting and civil
unrest, America itself is about to become a Constitution-free zone
where freedom is off-limits and government agents have all the power
and “we the people” have none.
The Customs and Border Protection
(CBP), with its more than 60,000
employees, supplemented by the National Guard and the U.S.
military, is an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, a
national police force imbued with all the brutality, ineptitude and
corruption such a role implies.
As journalist Todd Miller explains:
In these vast domains,
Homeland Security authorities can institute roving
patrols with broad, extra-constitutional powers backed by national
security, immigration enforcement and drug interdiction mandates.
There, the Border Patrol can set up traffic checkpoints and fly
surveillance drones overhead with high-powered cameras and radar that
can track your movements. Within twenty-five miles of the
international boundary, CBP agents can enter a person’s private
property without a warrant.
Just about every nefarious
deed, tactic or thuggish policy advanced by the government today can
be traced back to the DHS, its police state mindset, and the billions
of dollars it distributes to local police agencies in the
form of grants to transform them into extensions of the military.
As Miller points out, the
government has turned the nation’s expanding border regions into “a
ripe place to experiment with tearing apart the Constitution, a
place where not just undocumented border-crossers, but millions of
borderland residents have become the targets of continual
surveillance.”
In much the same way that
police across the country have been schooled in the art of
sidestepping the Constitution, border cops have also been drilled in
the art of “anything goes” in the name of national security.
In fact, according to FOIA
documents shared with The
Intercept, border
cops even have a checklist of “possible behaviors” that warrant
overriding the Constitution and subjecting
individuals—including American citizens—to stops, searches,
seizures, interrogations and even arrests.
For instance, if you’re driving
a vehicle that to a border cop looks unusual in some way,
you can be stopped. If your passengers
look dirty or unusual, you can be stopped. If you or
your passengers
avoid looking at a cop, you can be stopped. If you or
your passengers
look too long at a cop, you can be stopped.
If you’re anywhere
near a border (near being within 100 miles of a border, or
in a city, or on a bus, or at an airport), you can be stopped and
asked to prove you’re legally allowed to be in the country. If
you’re traveling
on a public road that smugglers and other criminals may have
traveled, you can be stopped.
If you’re not
driving in the same direction as other cars, you can be stopped.
If you appear
to be avoiding a police checkpoint, you can be stopped. If
your car
appears to be weighed down, you can be stopped. If your vehicle
is from out of town, wherever that might be, you can be stopped.
If you’re driving
a make of car that criminal-types have also driven, you can be
stopped.
If your car
appears to have been altered or modified, you can be stopped. If
the cargo
area in your vehicle is covered, you can be stopped.
If you’re driving
during a time of day or night that border cops find suspicious,
you can be stopped. If you’re driving
when border cops are changing shifts, you can be stopped. If
you’re driving
in a motorcade or with another vehicle, you can be stopped.
If your car
appears dusty, you can be stopped.
If people
with you are trying to avoid being seen, or exhibiting “unusual”
behavior, you can be stopped. If you slow
down after seeing a cop, you can be stopped.
In Portland, which is 400 miles
from the border, protesters didn’t even have to be near federal
buildings to be targeted. Some claimed to be targeted for
simply wearing black clothing in the area of the
demonstration.
Are
you starting to get the picture yet?
This was never about illegal aliens
and border crossings at all. It’s been a test to see how far “we
the people” will allow the government to push the limits of the
Constitution.
We’ve
been failing this particular test for
a long time now.
It was 1798
when Americans, their fears stoked by rumblings of a Quasi-War with
France, failed to protest the Alien
and Sedition Acts, which criminalized anti-government speech,
empowered the government to deport “dangerous” non-citizens and
made it harder for immigrants to vote.
During the Civil
War, Americans
went along when Abraham Lincoln suspended
the writ of habeas corpus (the right to a speedy trial) and
authorized government officials to spy on Americans’ mail.
During World
War I, Americans
took it in stride when President Woodrow Wilson and Congress
adopted the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to
interfere with the war effort and criminalized
any speech critical of war.
By World
War II, Americans
were marching in lockstep with the government’s expanding war
powers to imprison Japanese-American citizens in detainment camps,
censor mail, and lay
the groundwork for the future surveillance state.
Fast-forward to the Cold
War’s Red Scares,
the McCarthy era’s hearings on un-American activities, and the
government’s surveillance of Civil Rights activists such
as Martin Luther King Jr.—all done in the name of national
security.
By the time 9/11
rolled around, all George W. Bush had to do was claim the country was
being invaded by terrorists, and the government was given greater
powers to spy, search, detain and arrest American
citizens in order to
keep America safe.
The terrorist invasion never really
happened, but the government kept its newly acquired police powers
made possible by the nefarious USA Patriot Act.
Barack Obama
continued Bush’s trend of undermining the Constitution, going so
far as to give the
military the power to strip Americans of their constitutional rights,
label them extremists, and detain them indefinitely without
trial, all in the
name of keeping
America safe.
Despite the fact that the breadth
of the military’s power to detain American citizens violates not
only U.S. law and the Constitution but also international laws, the
government has refused to relinquish its detention powers made
possible by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Then Donald
Trump took office,
claiming the country was being invaded by dangerous immigrants and
insisting that the only way to keep America safe was to build an
expensive border wall, expand the reach of border patrol, and empower
the military to “assist” with border control.
That so-called immigration crisis
has now morphed into multiple crises (domestic extremism, the
COVID-19 pandemic, race wars, civil unrest, etc.) that the government
is eager to use in order to expand its powers.
Yet as we’ve learned the hard
way, once the government acquires—and uses—additional powers (to
spy on its citizens, to carry out surveillance, to transform its
police forces into extensions of the police, to seize taxpayer funds,
to wage endless wars, to censor and silence dissidents, to identify
potential troublemakers, to detain citizens without due process), it
does not voluntarily relinquish them
This
is the slippery slope on which we’ve been traveling for far too
long.
As Yale historian Timothy Snyder
explains, “This is a classic way that violence happens in
authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether
it’s the Russian Empire. The
people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are
then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
Sure, it’s the Trump
Administration calling the shots right
now, but it’s government
agents armed with
totalitarian powers and beholden to the bureaucratic Deep State who
are carrying out these orders in defiance of the U.S. Constitution
and all it represents.
Whether it’s Trump or
Biden or someone else altogether, this year or a dozen years from
now, the damage has been done:
as I make clear in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People,
we have allowed the
president to acquire dictatorial powers that can be unleashed at any
moment.
There’s a reason the Trump
Administration is consulting
with John Yoo, the Bush-era attorney notorious for justifying
waterboarding torture tactics against detainees. They’re not
looking to understand how to follow the law and abide by the
Constitution. Rather, they’re desperately seeking ways to thwart
the Constitution.
As Harvard constitutional law
professor Laurence Tribe recognizes,
“The
dictatorial hunger for power is insatiable.
This is how it begins.
This is how it always begins.
Don’t
be fooled into thinking any of this will change when the next
election rolls around.
===============================
* DHS, ofwel Department of Homeland Security.
Zie ook:
‘Slavernij in VS nog steeds toegestaan in de grondwet: inzet slaven bij bosbranden Californië‘
‘Rutte (VVD premier) maakt zich schuldig aan racistische leugens en bedrog‘(en deze hufter-figuur mag les geven aan het voorgezet onderwijs……)
‘#ADEMBENEMEND: Nederlandse hiphopscene laat zich horen tegen racisme‘
‘Politieracisme en -geweld tegen oorspronkelijke volkeren van Canada‘
‘New Jersey police shooting: Bodycam video released in killing of unarmed black man‘
(nog een zwarte man die werd vermoord door de politie en dan durft men
in de VS onder leiding van de psychopathische fascist Trump, de niet
centraal geleide organisatie Black Lives Matter, als een
terreurorganisatie neer te zetten…..)
‘Black Lives Matter: toestemming vergroting van politiegeweld in Nederland moet worden gestopt‘
‘Trump en Fox zijn uit op een militaire coup‘ (o.a. over de bemoeienissen van Trump met de demonstraties tegen racistisch politie geweld)
‘Rayshard Brooks: weer een gekleurde VS burger die om niets werd vermoord door de politie‘
‘Vriendschappelijke en handelsrelaties met landen die minderheden vervolgen moeten worden gekapt‘
‘Militairen op de straten van Washington: VS op weg naar een burgeroorlog‘
‘Obama en ‘change’ n.a.v. de moord op George Floyd: een ongelofelijke hypocriet aan het woord‘
‘Brekend nieuws: militairen op straat in Washington!!‘
‘Black Lives Matter: een cartoon‘
‘Anti-racisme demonstratie in Amsterdam reden voor hysterische ophef‘
‘Uitrusting Politie VS versus die van medisch hulpverleners‘
‘Politie VS infiltreert protesten n.a.v. de dood van George Floyd en zet aan tot geweld‘
Zie wat betreft de ‘Coronachantage’ tijdens de BLM protesten van Curaçao, Aruba en Sint Maarten: ‘Black Lives Matter maar niet voor neokoloniaal Rutte 3: Coronahulp voor Antilliaanse slaveneilanden alleen na hervormingen‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht)
‘Nederland chanteert alweer Antilliaanse eilanden: nu voor hulp bij Coronacrisis‘