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Terror/Police States

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 24 Apr , 2009 4:30 pm
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I don't believe there was any conspiracy - I just believe there were a few out-of-control bad apples.

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laureanna
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 24 Apr , 2009 4:30 pm
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I'm glad to hear Iavas is getting out more. I have a hard time, myself, sitting inside reading these boards when I could be out in the garden, on a boat, or on a bike.

Friday mornings I do volunteer work that sometimes involves sitting patiently, waiting for something to do. That's when I get on the boards and catch up.

So have you been getting out at well?

Oh, and back to the topic - I don't mind roadblocks, license plate cameras, and sobriety tests to keep drunks off the road, and if asked for my papers, I would give them without hesitation, but I do worry about the people who don't routinely carry papers. People who are too young, too old, too disabled, too mentally ill, too poor, or too new to this country may not have a drivers license, and may not have taken the trouble to get, and always carry, a state ID card or passport. Yet they are the ones most likely to be profiled and stopped, and demanded of to produce papers. Now they can be thrown in jail. Is this progress?

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Eruname
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 24 Apr , 2009 11:54 pm
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Yes, I've been getting out as well, though not as much as he does. I tend not to have as much energy to invest in it. I've been planting up the borders and am going to be sowing loads of hardy annuals and some veg hopefully tomorrow.

On topic, of course I don't think there was any conspiracy regarding all the G20 protests. I think quite a few of the people really got out of hand, but also the police could have handled the situation a lot better. People were telling reporters how they wanted to leave the area but weren't allowed to. There have also been quite a few videos of police brutality. I know those guys had a heck of a lot to deal with but unfortunately you can't snap and do things like backhand a woman then whack her with your baton.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sat 25 Apr , 2009 12:01 am
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Surely you've all heard of the guy that was killed? Who wasn't even a protester, but was just walking by on his way home from work?

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vison
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sun 26 Apr , 2009 12:22 am
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Gardening is the best thing. Good for Iavas. As long as he doesn't start wanting to grow the biggest Marrow in England. THAT is dangerous. :D

I bristle when I consider being asked for identification. If a cop stops me while I'm driving, okay. I produce the license and registration. If I'm walking? I don't think I would cooperate too willingly. I am a citizen and have the right to walk where I wish, pretty much.

We were once stopped at the corner just before our road and the cop asked where we were going. My husband was driving and he said, "Why do I have to tell you?" but he said it quite nicely, not snottily. The cop was nice in return and explained that there had been some kind of fracas further on and they didn't want people clogging up the road. Fair enough. My husband told him we weren't going that far and away we went.

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sun 26 Apr , 2009 4:03 am
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In CO everyone over 18 has to carry state ID at all times. It's been that way for as long as I've been here. The only times I've ever been asked to produce said ID by policemen have been when I got pulled over for driving without my lights on (got off with a warning) and when I got in my bike wreck and became part of a 911 call. But, then again, I fit the profile for utterly harmless.

I almost got arrested in Belgrade over papers but that's another story. :roll:

Anyway, the FBI is now tracking your every move on teh intertubes. Check it out.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Mon 27 Apr , 2009 7:38 pm
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What happens in CO if a person stopped on the sidewalk, walking not driving, is not carrying ID?

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Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Mon 27 Apr , 2009 9:33 pm
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I have no idea. Honestly, it's a law I just filed away under useless trivia. Basic common sense requires me to carry at least my state id and a credit card at all times. Actually carrying your health insurance card is also a good idea, as I learned the hard way. Usually, I just keep it all bundled in my wallet.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Tue 28 Apr , 2009 3:17 pm
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Washington to Regulate your Bake Sale
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Informal production and distribution, from small farms and homes, were once not only common, but the backbone of everyday life.

Today, there's a revival of much of this, as people begin to realize that corporate practices have increasingly relied upon putting additives in foods and plastics in other products.

I have sad news for locavores and other health food fans hoping to buck the trend of corporate practice: H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. This new bill, now worming its way through the corridors of Capitol Hill, would require anyone who stores or sells any food products to any third party to register with the federal government and keep extensive records about every product bought, produced, modified, or sold.

How far will the law reach? I suspect it will have no limit, which one section clarifies: “In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist.”

In other words, the federal government will, if this bill is passed and “successfully” administered, regulate everything, including (and down to) your local organic truck farm, festival, or bake sale.

This bit of food totalitarianism thus takes its place in a long line of federal government regulations that, in the name of safety, regulates small operations out of existence.

It makes no sense.
The urge to regulate every little thing should, theoretically, be restrained during economic hard times ... but the only thing that is never restrained is the urge to regulate everything.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 01 May , 2009 2:52 am
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http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/organic.asp" target="_blank
Quote:
Food Safety Modernization Act
Claim: The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 would eliminate home gardens and put organic farmers out of business.

MOSTLY FALSE
Quote:
Examples: [Collected via e-mail, March 2009]

Hello friends and fellow citizens,

BEWARE THE FOOD POLICE! HR 875/S425

IT WOULD NATIONALIZE FARMING- DESTROY ORGANICS- EVEN ATTACK YOUR PRIVATE GARDEN!

I just stumbled on some pretty disturbing legislation coming out of the Congress of the United States. The bill is HR 875 and it's labeled as the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. At first glance it didn't seem like much. However, there are several, including exposing some pretty scary legislation enclosed in the bill. In the midst of the financial crisis, it seems that these initiatives are sliding in under the radar. Many people are not even aware of them- It is imperative that you look into this immediately and with extreme scrutiny as our heath and well-being are threatened!!! If this bill passes, you can say goodbye to organic produce, your Local Farmer's market and very possibly, the GARDEN IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD!!!!!

Things we are finding in the bill:
* Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn't actually use the word organic.
* Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
* Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
* Requires organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to 'make sure there is no danger to the public food supply.' * Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal. There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
* Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
* Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
* Section 207 requires that the state's agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.


The bill is monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent farms - the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.

I encourage you to look into this immediately and help remove this bizarre piece of legislation.

Many small farmers and organic food activists are claiming that if H.R. 875 is passed, it will mean the end of organic farming in the United States.

H.R. 875 was introduced by Democrat Rosa DeLauro in February. Her introduction of this bill represents a stunning conflict of interest, because her husband, Stanley Greenburg, works for Monsanto. Monsanto is the world's biggest producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seeds, and they would GREATLY benefit if thousands of small organic farmers were put out of business, because organic farmers don't use Monsanto products.

H.R. 875 is called the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 and you can find the full text of the bill here:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex ... l=h111-875" target="_blank

This horrific bill would establish a "Food Safety Administration" within the Department of Health and Human Services. The mandate of this new department would be "to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."

Section 3 of H.R. 875 defines what type of establishments would be subject to the regulations in this legislation. It that section, a "food production facility" is defined this way:

The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.

So that would include.....

*All organic farms
*All small farms
*All family farms
*Even small family gardens if you sell any produce to your neighbor at all

If you read this bill, you will see that it gives the government the power to regulate what is "safe" farming, and therefore if organic farmers are not using enough herbicide on their plants to be "safe" or they aren't following the same "quality control" procedures as the big guys they could be instantly put out of business.

In addition, it loads small farmers with massive amounts of paperwork and administrative burdens that the big corporations can handle but they can't.

That is how you put a horde of small competitors out of business - you get the government to pile on the rules and burdens and regulations until they collapse.

That is why Monsanto desperately wants this bill. They hate the small farmers and they want to take them out of the picture.

If you care about organic farming, please call Congress and tell them to stop this horrible bill.
Origins: In
response to a number of serious food contamination incidents (such as the recent salmonella outbreak linked to peanuts) that have raised concerns about the safety of the U.S. food supply, in February 2009 Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut introduced to Congress HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. The main purpose of the bill is to establish a Food Safety Administration (FSA) within the Department of Health and Human Services "to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination."
"This salmonella outbreak represents the full-scale breakdown of a patchwork food safety system. And it should act as the final wake up call," said DeLauro. "That is why, today, I am introducing the Food Safety Modernization Act to separate food safety regulation from drug and device approvals and to restore the balance that has long been missing at Health and Human Service.

Under the proposal, FDA would be split into an agency responsible for food safety (the Food Safety Administration) and another responsible for regulation of drugs and devices. This move creates an agency solely focused on protecting the public through better regulation of the food supply. The Food Safety Modernization Act would establish a farm-to-fork system for protecting foods that are currently regulated by FDA, which has jurisdiction over 80 percent of the food supply.
The announcement of HR 875 spawned a number of Internet-circulated pieces warning about the dire results citizens would face should be the bill pass, most of them repeating exaggerated claims unwarranted by anything stated within the text of the bill itself.

One oft-repeated claim is that Rep. DeLauro's husband, Stanley Greenberg, works for the agricultural giant Monsanto corporation, and therefore Rep. DeLauro has a substantial financial interest in the passage of HR 875, a substantial conflict of interest. This information is false. Stanley Greenberg is not a Monsanto employee; he's the chairman and CEO of Greenberg-Quinlan Research Inc., a public issues research and polling firm which, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted in a clarification, hasn't had any business dealings with Monsanto for over a decade:
An editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal stated Stanley Greenberg, husband of Connecticut Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who has proposed legislation imposing new mandates on food producers, "is a leading Democratic political strategist and consultant with clients including pesticide and fertilizer giant Monsanto." Both DeLauro's office and a spokesman for Greenberg's firm said that Monsanto has not been a client of Greenberg's for more than 10 years.
As for some of the other claims about HR 875 stated in the pieces quoted above:

# Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.

The bill defines the term "food production facility" to be "any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation." It's something of a stretch to interpret that definition as applying to persons who maintain home-based vegetable gardens or otherwise grow small amounts of food for personal consumption.

# Requires organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to 'make sure there is no danger to the public food supply.'

No language in HR 875 mandates that farms (organic or otherwise) use of any particular fertilizer or pesticide, or requires the use of either of those products in general. The bill merely calls upon the FSA to establish regulations regarding "minimum standards related to fertilizer use."

# The power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals

No language in HR 875 addresses seed banking or requires GPS tracking of animals.

Many of these same points are addressed in Rep. DeLauro's Myths and Facts sheet for HR 875:
MYTH: H.R. 875 "makes it illegal to grow your own garden" and would result in the"criminalization of the backyard gardener."

FACT: There is no language in the bill that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens. The focus of the bill is to ensure the safety of food in interstate commerce.

MYTH: H.R. 875 would mean a "goodbye to farmers markets" because it would regulateand penalize "each farmer who wishes to sell locally."

FACT: There is no language in the bill that would result in farmers markets beingregulated, penalized by any fines, or shut down. Farmers markets would be able to continue to flourish under the bill. In fact, the bill would insist that imported foods meet strict safety standards to ensure that unsafe imported foods are not competing with locally-grown foods.

MYTH: H.R. 875 would result in the "death of organic farming" or "mandate the use ofchemicals or certain types of seeds on organic farms."

FACT: There is no language in the bill that would stop or interfere with organic farming.The National Organic Program (NOP) is under the jurisdiction of the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA). The Food Safety Modernization Act only addresses food safety issues under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

MYTH: H.R. 875 would implement a national animal ID system (NAIS).

FACT: There is no language in the bill that would implement NAIS, which is under the jurisdiction of the USDA. H.R. 875 addresses issues under the jurisdiction of the FDA.
Certainly the provisions of HR 875 are subject to legitimate debate over how effective the bill would be at improving and ensuring the safety of America's food supply and whether they would place undue financial and regulatory burdens on smaller farms and businesses that primarily engage in the local production and sale of food items, but those concerns aren't being effectively addressed through the circulation of unwarranted claims similar to those cited above. Sources such as the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund are better starting points for grasping some of the issues regarding how HR 875 might affect small farmers.

Last updated: 1 April 2009

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/organic.asp" target="_blank

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2009 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.


Sources:

Robinson, Ryan. "Food-Safety Bill Plants Some Concerns."
Lancaster New Era. 24 March 2009.

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. "HR 875 - The Federal Take-Over of Food Regulation."
13 March 2009.

Reuters. "U.S. Peanut Plantings to Drop 27 Percent After Salmonella Scare."
31 March 2009.

Richmond Times-Dispatch. "CSA Farmers Keeping an Eye on Bill in Congress."
24 March 2009.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Mon 04 May , 2009 9:44 pm
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Lali, my posted article didn't mention regulating someone growing their own food in their own yard, it only mentioned those who sell their food to anyone else. And the snopes article doesn't refute that part.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Wed 06 May , 2009 8:22 pm
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...

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue 28 Jul , 2009 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Tue 28 Jul , 2009 3:05 pm
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Today, Henry Gates; Tomorrow, You
Quote:
After a week, the turbid tale of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge police has finally settled into the tedium of the 24-hour news cycle, singularly focused – but predictably superficial – in its debate over whether race played a prevailing role in Gates’ doorstep arrest on July 16.

That happens when a black, liberal scholar charges the white police officer who arrested him with racial profiling, and when the president, who happens to be black, says the police acted "stupidly" for doing so. The debate has thus found its shopworn but comfortable partisan trajectory, with Democrats using Gates to reopen a "dialogue" on race relations that forever churns but goes nowhere, and Republicans, largely represented by the right-wing blogosphere, loyally falling in behind the cops, holding the Thin Blue Line on the political front.

It has become a timeless political and media waltz, one that serves neither side, especially the actual victims of racial profiling.

But an interesting and even momentarily hopeful thing happened in that fertile space of time between when a news story breaks and the mainstream media’s wagons circle a simple, safe narrative. People started talking about the police. And civil liberties. The phrase "contempt of cop," referring to bogus arrests triggered when an officer perceives a challenge to his authority (typically when an individual in an exchange refuses to fully cooperate, is deemed disrespectful, asks too many questions, or asserts his rights), was invoked in relation to Gates in places as mainstream as National Public Radio.

On both the Left and the Right, commentators and bloggers were reflecting – however briefly – on their own relationships with police, and the ever widening gulf between “civilians” and cops, made more pronounced by post-9/11 hyper-criminalization and 21st-century communications like cell-phone cameras and YouTube. Early critics wondered openly not only about racial profiling – which remains an important touchstone here – but about police egos and the punishment for not keeping one’s mouth shut.

“What I see as more significant [than race] is the phenomenon of persons being arrested who challenge the authority of police,” David Rudovsky, senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, told the Christian Science Monitor on July 24, in a discussion of "contempt of cop" charges. “It’s street punishment.”

Former congressman and federal prosecutor Bob Barr agrees. "Reducing this simply to a racial conversation pretty much guarantees future problems," he said in an interview with Antiwar.com. "The fact of the matter is, this situation raises troubling questions about citizens being required to be overly submissive and condescended to by police." Sure, the badge should be respected, he added, but if the police are acting unreasonably, "I don’t think the citizenry ought to sit back and take it."

....

Unfortunately, while members of the so-called elite media like James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, acknowledge that "arresting Professor Gates was an unwise use of the officer’s authority," exploring this theme further seems unworthy of their attention. If they had, they’d easily find a body of case law defending Gates’ position. See Poocha and Duran for examples of men who were much more belligerent toward police than Gates but whose First Amendment right to free speech ultimately shielded them from conviction.

Now that should be the story. But as of Sunday, Gates has merely sparked what the Washington Post tiredly calls "a national conversation on race and law enforcement." Baloney. The "national conversation" merely allows the media to go on virtual autopilot while the he-said-she-said/black versus white narrative takes over, leaving any analysis of the law enforcement part a lifeless afterthought.

Even Taranto’s explanation, that the original Sturm und Drang occurred between "two stubborn men," is a cop-out. As Maureen Dowd said Saturday, "the strong guy with the gun has more control than the weak guy with the cane." That might be the best place to start, if a real conversation is what we’re after.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Tue 28 Jul , 2009 3:37 pm
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Thanks for the article CG. I am glad to see a few people at least defending Gates on this issue. The lack of reaction from some quarters is puzzling. I always thought there was a major lobby in this nation which took the position of "a persons home is their castle" and strongly objected to the government doing the kind of things that popped up in the Gates case. But for some reason, a good portion of that slice of American political thought has decided to either keep their silence on the issue or attempt to make political hay out of it by attacking the President.

Once the police officer determined that the home belonged to Gates, he should have departed without an additional word. If Gates became angry and agitated then the officer should have taken the quickest and easiest path to defusing Gates anger and that would have been removing himself from the property and leaving.

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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 31 Jul , 2009 7:31 pm
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Obama's Seret Police
Quote:
The indispensable Amy Goodman has the scoop: The Seattle Port Militarization Resistance (SPMR) group in Washington state thought their listserv coordinator, who went by the name "John Jacob," was one of them: a dedicated antiwar activist and self-described anarchist. They trusted him, they put him in a key position, they befriended him – and then they found out that he was a government informant.


His real name: John Towery (here’s his myspace page, and here is a photo). He claimed to be a civilian employee at Washington state’s Ft. Lewis: in reality, he was and is a functionary of the force protection unit, i.e. military personnel. His job: spying on the antiwar movement.

Towery was "outed" when one of SPMR’s members filed a public records request in the city of Olympia for any documents, including emails, in the city’s possession that referenced communications between the city police and the military regarding "anything on anarchists, anarchy, anarchism, Students for a Democratic Society or the Industrial Workers of the World," as local antiwar activist Brendan Maslauskas Dunn described it to Amy Goodman on her "Democracy Now" program. The results were startling: "I got back hundreds of documents from the city."

It was in going through this material that he and his fellow activists discovered the truth about "John Jacob": that he was a spy sent in to keep track of antiwar activity in the area, and a member of the Force Protection Service at Ft. Lewis. His fellow activists confronted him, and, as Dunn stated:

"He admitted to several things. He admitted that, yes, he did in fact spy on us. He did in fact infiltrate us. He admitted that he did pass on information to an intelligence network, which … was composed of dozens of law enforcement agencies, ranging from municipal to county to state to regional, and several federal agencies, including Immigration Customs Enforcement, Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI, Homeland Security, the Army in Fort Lewis. … He admitted to other things, too. He admitted that the police had placed a camera, surveillance camera, across the street from a community center in Tacoma that anarchists ran called the Pitch Pipe Infoshop. He admitted that there were police that did put a camera up there to spy on anarchists, on activists going there."

Oh, but he had a story: it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, he hadn’t completely betrayed his friends and associates, who had known him since 2007, when he first insinuated himself into local activist circles: because, you see, the Olympia and Tacoma cops had been planning to raid the Pitch Pipe Infoshop, as well as a house in Olympia where many activists lived, and they wanted their informant to tell them about all the guns, and drugs, and bombs that they imagined – hoped – were stockpiled there. Because, as everyone knows, no self-respecting anarchist is ever without a bomb to throw. "And, of course," says Dunn, "John told them, no, we didn’t have any of that stuff. He told them the truth."
Ok, he started in 2007, which was under Bush, but he was outed under Obama who allegedly doesn't do these things. Obama doesn't have fusion centers and doesn't have a DHS secretary releasing reports about the dangers of those who distrust big government.
Quote:
It can’t happen here? It has happened here.

You won’t hear or read about this in the "mainstream" media: Amy Goodman’s "Democracy Now" broke the story, and it hasn’t gone much further than that. The reason: the media is in the tank for Obama, and they don’t want to further tarnish his "progressive" credentials. After all, it’s bad enough he’s following the Bushian path on government secrecy, detainee policy, and the unprecedented expansion of presidential power.

Now that the Democrats are in power, they’re for all these things – because, after all, the Good Guys hold the reins. I can hear the Obama cultists now: They would never spy on the antiwar movement – why, for goodness sakes, most of those antiwar types voted for Obama! And now he’s sent his spies to disrupt their organizations? I don’t believe it!

Yet that, in effect, is what happened: not that the President personally ordered "Agent Orange" – as Towery was known on the listserv – to infiltrate and spy on the Washington antiwar movement. It wasn’t necessary: the "fusion centers" that dot the American landscape are merely doing what spy agencies are supposed to do, and they’re doing the same thing under President Obama that they did under George W. Bush. Obama hasn’t put a stop to it because he’s fighting an expanded version of the same war, and is loath to let a bunch of left-wing hippies stand in his way.
Of course this stuff doesn't happen, how dare the anti-war movement, which helped Obama defeat first Hillary and then McCain, oppose Obama's military plans.
Quote:
At least with people like Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, we had some kind of ideological consistency and honesty: those guys thought they had the right – and the duty — to carry out their crimes against the Constitution, and didn’t make any bones about it. It’s the "progressives," who claim fealty to civil libertarian values, and yet countenance the Obama administration’s continuation and expansion of the surveillance state, that are the real danger. Because they manage to fool an awful lot of people – the very same people who wrote to me in anger and puzzlement when I first began to take on the Obama-ites. Give him a chance, they whined. He’s only just gotten into office.

Okay, well, he’s had his chance, and he hasn’t taken it. President Obama is presiding over an even wider war than George W. Bush ever dreamed of, and because of that the antiwar movement is a natural target for his spy agencies, whose reach continues to grow. Why any of this is surprising to anyone is beyond me, but then again I’ve not been inducted into the Obama cult.

One wonders what it will take for what passes for the "left" these days to wake up. If I were them, I would heed the words of Murray Rothbard, the great libertarian theorist and onetime ally of the New Left, and apply it to their own movement:

"For the libertarian, the main task of the present epoch is to … discover who his friends and natural allies are, and above all, perhaps, who his enemies are."
Ramp up the apologetics, I'm eagerly waiting to see the explanations for this one.

I can already tell what one of them is going to be: "Well, it started under Bush". Ok, why didn't Obama end it?

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 31 Jul , 2009 9:05 pm
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And the direct connection between President Barack Obama and John Towery is ________________ ?????

Nothing I could find out on the net answered this question.

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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Fri 31 Jul , 2009 9:53 pm
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Well, one is the head of the executive branch of the government. The other is an employee of the executive branch of the government and his chain of command tops at the had of the executive branch of the government.

It's High School Civics.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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sauronsfinger
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sat 01 Aug , 2009 12:00 am
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from CG
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Well, one is the head of the executive branch of the government. The other is an employee of the executive branch of the government and his chain of command tops at the had of the executive branch of the government.

It's High School Civics.
And so are millions of other folks in thousands of different programs. So what? As for High school civics - I taught the class for decades. It was never part of the course to assume that the President had a working knowledge of each and every member of all the various departments and agencies that work for the Federal government. In fact, such an assumption is ludicrous and ridiculous on its face.


So you have actual evidence that President Barack Obama actually was aware of this program and approved of it and the activities of the said John Towery. Please present it for all to see. That would be a great deal more than the article you linked to did.

_________________

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. - John Rogers


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elfshadow
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sat 01 Aug , 2009 3:26 pm
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
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Hey, CG, I thought you might be interested in this story.


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: Re: Terror/Police States
Posted: Sun 02 Aug , 2009 3:57 am
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Good article Elf.

"Disorderly Conduct" has become nothing more than "Contempt of Cop", as that article shows. Technically, if you read the laws that created the offense, in most states it is activity that has the potential to incite violence or other similar disorder.

The offense "disorderly conduct" is being abused.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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