Will you let them take you into custody?

Naomi Wolf notes in her new book "The End of America" that no country has ever built a system of jails that operate outside the law where torture takes place, without eventually using them for their own citizens, to intimidate and suppress social activists, labor organizers, progressives, and the like.

Let's imagine for a moment that the extremely unlikely happens - that Gore, or some other candidate who understands that this racing towards the brink of totalitarianism has to be pushed back - actually gets the nomination, and actually, through some miracle, wins the Presidency and has the good sense to close Gitmo. That would be great.

But if it doesn't, and I consider that event to be much more likely, and things continue to slide . . . what will you do? Will you stop emailing and posting here? Will you let them come black bag you in the middle of the night out of your bed? Even Wolf says that if people start being "disappeared", she will stop appearing in public and speaking out.

I'm not sure what I will do. I have an (very dangerous for me) anti-authoritarian streak in me, so one part of me says that I'm likely to end up in some jail cell somewhere. Yet, personally, I'm pretty much a coward when it comes to being tortured.

What will you do?

EVERYONE FITTING IN AND SAYING NOTHING.

BUSINESSES ARE TOTALITARIAN.

If we allow fear to rule us - its over.

I will continue to live my life as I have lived and speak as I have spoken in the past. I prefer to live that way rather than hunkered in a bunker attitude afraid of my shadow.

There are 300 million of us. I don't think we will all go quietly.

That kind of stuff, taking to the streets, etc., might have worked 100 years ago when the robber barrons tried a similar kind of thing, but now they have microwave weapons and tasers and tear gas and white phosphorus, and when they do take you away they can destroy your mind with drugs and sensory deprivation and electroshock. They'll have their own army which will be way better equiped, thanks to BlackWater's billion dollar boondoggle contracts with Iraq.

I don't think I'll shut up, either, but I'm not too pleased about the alternatives.

The way I understand it, I am willing to die or be tortured for an ideal. If my peaceful resistance leads to my death, but the country can be saved or the political situation turned around, so be it. I am not changing to save my hide because I don't want my hide to live in that environment. I couldn't live with myself that way. Period.

And it worked for Gandhi - and many died so that India could be free. Read about his life's work - it will surprise you.

But the principle there is that eventually the oppressors get so sick and disgusted and guilty about what they are doing they will stop.

That's not going to happen with the corporatists. For them, a boot eternally stomping on a human face is their vision of a great and profitable future. They've killed millions already bringing "free trade" and unfettered capitalism to dozens of authoritarian nations. And they just did it again in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I do hope that there will be effective ways to counter what they are doing - I'm just a little down about the effectiveness of anything I can envision at the moment.

I think it is more powerful than the corporatists. I think there is something in the human spirit that does have the capacity for change, for growing in the realization that even a repeated action is wrong.

It is just what I choose to do. There would be no other path I can see that I can live with.

:hi:

methinks the Professor has a promising future in prison administration.

:-) MKJ

I feel like puking just about every day when I think about what this administration has put people through already - and it makes me even sicker to think about what they would do to people if they thought they could get away with it.

I've been saying "see you in the camps", kidding on the square, to my progressive friends since about 2002. Let's hope it never gets there.

Got it. MKJ

"See you in the camps" means that we'll both be there, as prisoners.

on edit:

You know how you said you were kidding on the square and all. Funny that.

:shrug: MKJ

Saying something which might actually be true but saying it like it's a joke. I don't wish that horror on anyone.

Thanks for clarifying for a feeble minded sort such as me. :-) MKJ

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x63296

MKJ

against Nazi Germany.

And the potential exists for US corporatism to make the Nazis look like amateurs.

Thanks. MKJ

I think it was a prison interview in the early '40s.

As I remember it he did not say he would not try it if the Nazis got as far as India (where he was under arrest by the British at the time) but his tactics could only work against a people who were inherently civilized like his then opponants of the British Empire, and the Nazis were the modern equivalent to the Mongol invaders who were willing to kill millions for their empire. If the Nazis overran India he would oppose them, and die, before betraying his own principles.

An admirable stand, but he recognized it to be a futile one.

references his stated belief that non-violent resistant would have been futile in Nazi Germany.

Thanks in advance. MKJ

Th Old American Republic for one, and of course the Latter-Day British Empire for another.

However, those ocuntries where such things can work are few and have grown considerably fewer since the Rise of the New Totalitarianism, which I call BushPutinism since it is camoflauging itself and does not yet have an official name.

Here are a couple countries where Ghandhism would result in either metaphorically or actually, result in the State rolling over the nonviolent protestors (all of this may be metaphorically speak, or literally,who can predict the exact details of the future, even if the trends are well known?

Ready?

Nazi Germany
Imperial Amerika

I believe the Imperial Subjects of Amerika are inured enough to state-sponsored torture and murder, unquestioningly obedient enough, apatathetic and ignorant enough that most won't even blink, and if they do, they will shrivel in their silence.

actual examples of this, not just speculation. The state has already rolled over nonviolent protestors in

Russia under Yeltsin
China in 1989
Burma this month
Indonesia throughout the 70s
Argentina in the 70s and 80s
Chile in the 60s and 70s
Uruguay in the 70s

has become/is becoming.

Therefore, the probability approaches 95% that this will be the case (if and when a Tiennamen Square ever happens, which it won't).

Isn't there an end of the world website on which you can post? :shrug: MKJ

or just had cops beat the shit of him for "resisting arrest" and then rolled onward.

I also think that if there was a Freeper-type inthere,they would have rolled over that sonovabitch with a sadistic grin.

The tank driver tried more than once to get around him, I believe you can see the tank tread marks in the asphalt that prove it.

It was the goddmandest thing and yes, the tank and he "danced" a bit, if I recall correctly.

I could probably take a trip down memory lane and watch it on YouTube, I'm thinking.

but the Chinese government survived that challenge and unknown thousands of protesters did not. Including, I've heard, that fellow there, who I understand was arrested a couple years later and, if he survives today, languishes in a prison somewhere.

as an example of what happens when peaceful resistance meets up with tanks.

Peaceful resistance cannot overcome entrenched, as we saw here in the late 1770s.

he was tortured and executed. I don't know for sure myself. One brave man.

of "illegal immigrant" round ups and "sex offender" round ups showed up on the news.

Labels are quite convenient.

I will fight it, but I figured that out a long time, as did many here, I'm sure. MKJ

I wouldn't risk my life or the life of my family for these rotten pigs.

I'm on the verge of packing by now. I have no doubt I'd see the writing on the wall well before the pigs came crashing through my front door.

OTOH, if the question is narrowed to what would I do when they come crashing through my door, well, I'd kill every last one of them or die trying before I'd allow them to touch my wife or son. I wouldn't just stand idly by while they rounded us all up to cart us off to some torture chamber.

but due to the fact that I have children ....

It's a very scary world when one seriously considers these scenarios.

I love and need to protect presents a real problem that these bastards are sure to exploit.

I don't think I need to mention what compels people to avoid it. But instead of acting against the cruel and unusual punishment that goes on there, we pay stand up comics to make us laugh about it.

Unfortunately I would stop posting on the DU if it meant I would be sent to prison to be anally raped. We are all motivated to be good citizens.

I find nothing funny about jokes about being someone's prison bitch - even inmates should be protected from that kind of abuse. What a horror scene this country is.

And I'm not going quietly if they do show up at my door.

Honestly, though, I may keep my mouth shut for one reason- it's not doing any good. The sheep are running to the slaughterhouse, and I can't get through their thick skulls.

most are highly critical of our government.I've already told my mom if they find me dead,it's not an accident.Hasn't stopped me from speaking out...
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/w8liftinglady/32

or give me death.


And someone take care of my kitties, please.

nt

with your hands on your head, or on the trigger of your gun?

when the law breaks in, how you gonna go?
shot down on the pavement, or waiting in death row?

you can crush us,
you can bruise us;
but you'll have to answer to:
ohhh-oh guns of brixton

NT

this has a lot of resonance to me

One of them told me and I will paraphrase, all the tough talk we can have before they come for you will be nothing

You'll only know when it happens

Another thing.. the way these arrests are done... is to minimize resistance

So for the moment I'll fight, but if they win I don't expect to make it to the other side, but how will I react, I will only know when it happens.

By the way, the person who told me this was completely changed by the whole experience

Damn I can't spell tonight

They won't come for us with sirens wailing - they come at 3:00 am, and you're in cuffs before you even know they're in the house. Or a van pulls up beside you while you're waking on the street and 3 burly Blackwater guys just grab and go. Or a pair of detectives shows up at work and quietly escort you from the building.

In most scenarios, resistance is not even an option.

whee!

I always imagined that would be so warm and dark and comforting, to put my head there.

Unofrtunately, I am a bit less limber than in my younger days, and I couldn't contort enough to make that happen. Obviously you ARE limber enough, so I am forced to ask you:

Is it nice up there?

"name the criminal". (illegal immigrants and sex offenders, as mentioned above, are the current fave).

If so, this thread has been of value. :toast: MKJ

which I consider a fate worse than death, then the fuckers who come for me had better be a fully armed and armored SWAT team, because I'll fight to the death. It's perfectly reasonable when one considers I'd have nothing to lose by fighting, and endless agony and trauma if I surrender.

Granted, I probably won't last long, but like I said, I have nothing to lose, and maybe I'll take a couple of the fascist motherfuckers with me.

your neighbors and fellow townspeople.

They will do the bidding of evil with very few questioons and any qualms they will keep in their beliies (or they will lose job, health insurance, and may become a Filthy Little Nobody on the other side of the knock next time) and DO THEIR JOB, as always happens at least for awhile (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, papa Doc, Marcos, Pinohcet...etc etc ETC!).

As nadinbresionski said above, and which is almost unquestionably true (with rare exceptions, I am sure) is that all the tough talk means NOTHING when they get the drop on you. Or inthe face of such a brutal reality to a people who are unaccustomed to even discomfort or waiting for something. People like all of us Imperial Subjects of Amerika.

And it won't be Bushies...it will be your local police, and that is a tragedy becuase that means the facists won't even be there to fight. Unless one of the local cops is a Hannibot.

If they put on the uniform of fascism, even if they just stand by and do nothing while their comrades commit all the atrocities, they're just as guilty. They're fair game.

Blow their fucking heads off.

Give me a reason not to.

This conversation is over, do what you will.

At least it's quick.

That's a strangely non-reality-based position to take.

if one of the people who actually understand that Guantanamo absolutely needs to be closed ASAP (my list on that would include Gore, Kucinich, and possibly Edwards and Dodd) won the Presidency and then closed camp x-ray. If all those things happen, which I consider unlikely at this point, I'm willing to declare a miracle and possibly even start believing in a higher intelligence.

Just in recent American history, the House Un-American Activities Committee (Joe McCarthy) ran roughshod over free speech, rights to assembly, etc. and generally fostered an extreme climate of fear and activism against liberal Americans. He and his committee were eventually denounced and repudiated.

While our Constitutional guidelines are under attack from the extremist right, I just don't think they can, or will be successful in the long term. And the coup d'grace may very well come from their own membership.

We've been in this kind of conflict before. I think it will be set to rights.

Incrementally, perhaps, as it has been established. But surely and deliberatively.

Constitution?

My my, if not, then at least that aspect (government policy being that American ciitizens have no inherent right to habeus corpus) is indeed worse than ANYTHING that has ever come before.

I'll aks you again: Has there EVER been any American Government that publicly disavowed the existence of the right of Habeus Corpus?

I'm not talking about Black Ops or any other sneaky shiot, but AVOWED PUBLIC POLICY.

That is but one example that refutes your point. There are many mroe, but my fingers are tired.

but, as has been pointed out, at least the Civil War had an end. The War on Terra is expected to last a "generation" or more.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

http://www.leftjustified.org/leftjust/lib/sc/ht/const/caa1.html#a1s9

Which is another stark contrast between Lincoln and Bush, but another similarity between Bush and Hitler.

Lincoln's suspension was Constitutionally mandated. Hitler suspended habeaus corpus unConstiotutionally by force of will alone, the way Bush did.

This Supreme Court seems to FAVOR it.

Big difference.

my proposition is that it is likely that at some future date, you can either keep doing what you are doing (speaking out and posting and opposing corrupt government on the phone and over the internet), or the government will silence you. They don't need to take very many people away for everyone to get the point . . . just a few. And when (if) that happens, will you quietly scrape your "Bush Sucks" bumpersticker off your car or will you just keep on griping away, oblivious to the danger to your self and your family?

When opposition becomes a dangerous thing, will you still roll your eyes when Bush comes on the TV? Will you do it if your Freeper neighbor is there? Will you keep your "Bushisms" daily calendar on your desk at work?

At some point, every act of defiance will have to be measured against the potential risk. I'm just curious as to if people have looked inside themselves and asked themselves these questions, and if so, how do they think their behavior will change? Because we know in societies like these, 98% of the population continues to hate the regime, but they quietly go about their business and don't raise a fuss.

Since American citizens don't raise a fuss about anything these days, I'm thinking we'll act the same way.

First of all American citizens have been marching and protesting in large numbers for years. Secondly, bush will be gone in a little over a year. As someone upthread noted, this is just dystopian fantasy stuff.

But we'll still have a gulag, a private mercenary forces on our streets, and a law enforcement apparatus that can hold people indefinitely without access to a lawyer if we call them a magic word, "enemy combatants". These things have to be reversed and dismantled, otherwise things will get worse, not better.

See Naomi Wolf, "the End of the America" and Naomi Klein, "the Shock Doctrine".

and though I appreciate a lot of what she's saying and think it's great she's ringing alarm bells, to her nothing is a coincidence. And of course these things need to be reversed. That's why we need to increase our majorities in the Congress, and elect a dem president.

much better than Guiliani, who is clearly an authoritarian.

But we'll want Democrats who understand that those things need to be reversed.

Klein's book is really about the conflict between rampant capitalism and democracy, don't you think? And that is the conflict that is happening here, as well.

and she puts it well, explaining how it takes advantage of everything from natural disasters to war.

Of course you will now be jumped on as stupid, naive, or a paid corporate spy.

After all, the America we all know and love would never detain its own citizens, without access to a lawyer, and then torture them with sensory deprivation and drugs until they lost their minds. Surely there would be an outcry from the citizenry if that ever happened. To think otherwise is to lack sanity.

Or perhaps to think otherwise is to remember Jose Padilla.

:eyes:

wake up, already.

:eyes:

2) don't believe what happened to Padilla
3) don't give a crap or
4) don't think his case was a test case to see what they could get away with.

I'm glad I'm not counting on you to help stop the government from doing this to other people.

Everthing that happened to him he just brought on himself by not bein a good merican.

Just look at congress - the majority of repubs and not a few dems seem to have no problem with everything he's done. This is not a cult of personality that will go away with him - it is a deeply embedded strain of fascism that a third of the American populace seems to crave, and that Wall Street and the financial establishment vigorously supports.

Unlike previous posters, I don't believe we've EVER seen anything like this in this country. The McCarthy years look tame, compared to this. The government doesn't need to call out troops to put down strikes anymore because the unions have been emasculated. We let ourselves be herded into 'free speech zones' - remember the New York experiment, where they arrested the people in the free speech zone for 'disturbing the peace'? Yet we STILL continue to put up with them, putting ourselves in tight, controlled areas where we can be surrounded and arrested en-masse. How many of our congress critters have made an issue of them?

Civil rights has not been in such bad shape since the 70s. A rabbi is beaten with a baseball bat by an assailant screaming "Jew!" with every swing of the bat, and the police don't consider it a hate crime. Racists are ignored, while leftists are reviled.

Dystopian fantasy?

I'm with you on that one... I see the infrastructure they've gone to such trouble to set up... I don't see them having done all that for no reason.

the local law enforcement people are just freaky and, i've never been cowed by anything like this, but i won't be putting any political statements on my car. i can't afford to be pulled over. i can't afford to fight an unfair ticket and can't afford to pay a fine deserved or not.

bumper stickers are a luxury i just can't afford anymore.

from what Naomi Wolf has described

And the use of the IRS

But you are right. most folks don't even know

But, it is increasingly risky to talk

"With your hands on your head or the trigger of your gun?"

but I reserve the right to do so at any time. I think knowing how to shoot is just one of those skills that all humans ought to have, like giving an injection or driving a motor vehicle. Because you can't predict, but you can prepare.

Until then, I'm going to keep doing what I do.

First they came for the muslims.
Then the drug users.
Then the gun owners.
Then they came for me.

...clean and lubed for that eventuality. I hope to hell I never have to resort to using them, but good fortune is the by-product of being prepared.

Millions of people rounded up and dispatched -- it was possible partly because no one could believe what was actually happening, and by the time it was obvious, it was too late.

If your doomsday scenario does occur, it will be while we're all being convinced it's no big deal.

we could go on for years and years, with everyone understanding that speaking out is just not a viable option. How would people's behavior change?

Though "fictional" I look to the novel 1984 for an example of another option. There were adherents to the party of Big Brother and then there were the proles.

Julie

As soon as the beer supply in this country is interrupted in any way, any fascist government will be overthrown immediately.

:rofl:

those who stood by and let hitler and his buddies take over the country and do all the stuff hitler did.

I hope to hell that if or when the time comes, that I will stand up.
I hope the have the guts.

i hope i never have to find out

Who knows? maybe when they tell me I'm being "excessive" in my description of how things are, they're right...

Oh, wait...I think those people in Gitmo and the secret prisons would disagree. So would Padilla, if he had his mind still.

It's a blessing and a curse to hear the voices of the victims.

:hi:

We need to "talk" sometime...

I think Cuba has a nicer temperature :evilgrin:

It will be the new Pacific Northwest.

Soon the "Aymans," "Jabirs," and "Hafids" of GitMo will be replaced by the "Bills," "Toms," and "Steves."

What will I do? I don't know...

Somewhere in the first book, he asks what would have happened if every time the secret police came to arrest someone, his neighbors had showed up armed with pieces of furniture and kitchen cutlery to fight them off.

Sure, the neighbors would be risking reprisals, but what if it had happened every time? What if no one could have been arrested without opposition from his neighbors?

Of course that's not what happened. All the neighbors trembled quietly in their own apartments, breathing a sigh of relief when the secret police departed.

I think of that passage whenever I hear reports of the arrest of some inner-city youth drawing a crowd of angry neighbors. I'm sure the cops hate that phenomenon, but I always think, "Good for them." The arrestee may be innocent or guilty, but the presence of witnesses probably curtails any impulses to rough up the perpetrator.

it won't be overt and you won't see it coming. it will happen in a way that is vague enough so that even fellow DU'ers will say, it's yer own damn fault. you'll be pulled over for a traffic violation and kept jailed under a pretense that makes you look nefarious -- "we found 3 kilos of heroin in the glove box!" -- or, "s/he's a sexual predator."

it won't be politically overt -- it doesn't have to be. there's already a profit motive to keep the prison-industrial complex making money. a "round-up" will be done under the pretense of "cracking down on crime" and everyone will applaud the initiative.

on the other hand, they will let everyone know the real deal - people will understand they need to "watch what they say". And many people's behavior will change, just a little bit. Just enough to buy them some more time and safety, they'll hope. I'm just interested in seeing if people have thought about what changes they would be willing to make to their behavior in the face of such a threat - would they keep going on about the evils of authoritarianism and risk being made an example of? Would they shut up completely and never express their views? Would they stop using the internet?

but, there's no way of counting those who have already stepped aside.

yours is a good question -- "will you shut up?" i already have. my DU posts became an issue in my divorce. i was threatened on many different levels by the ex's lawyer. so, i self-censored. shut down my blog and became a "kick and rec" poster instead of a writer.

i've only just begun to get back into posting, after the papers were finalized.

I may have to shut up soon, too. I hope I never have to make that choice, here in America.

with my parental units way back in HS and college. they were both civil rights activists and radical dems living in a small mountain town. they had endured retribution taken against their kids and ratcheted down their speech -- no more giant McGovern banners sewn from 10 bedsheets hung across the family home.

i wasn't their natural kid -- they were my guardians. none of their kids grew up politically active. when i came along, i was already radicalized and could not understand why they wanted me to keep a low profile. i felt betrayed, to tell you the truth.

they were scared for me, from personal experience.

the older i get (i'm 41 now), the more i see where they were coming from. i couldn't believe the shit that flew in the divorce -- but, it wouldn't have been an issue if i had the money to fight it. i didn't.

there's a direct line between speech and economic security.

"resisting arrest" and "assaulting an officer," at which point many DUers will say, "Why didn't just go quietly?"

The police can get me to do or go where they want me to go by TALKING to me - that is it.

IF they feel as if someone is really in danger from me, THEN I grudgingly give them the right to use force to restrain me. But under no circumstances should cattle prods be used to make me comply with their will - they must use reason and patience. (and by "me" I mean "anybody") Why is that such a hard concept around here?

to see DUers say that it's all right to taser a guy who's doing nothing threatening.

It's okay for cops dressed like Darth Vader to pepper spray peaceful demonstrators who are simply standing near a police line (as I saw happen in Portland in 2002).

After all, the cops are always right. :sarcasm:

I know I think up my own share of bizarre tinfoil hat theories at times; none of which had received any recommendations, never mind 8, but I digress... :rofl: :evilgrin: Sorry, but thinking into hyperbole and situations based on it only lets irrationality take over.


And if you want me to say some hyperbole; chances are she'd "magically disappear" long before anyone else. :crazy: :silly: :crazy: :silly: :crazy: :silly: :crazy: :silly:



BTW: Look at America's history; especially WW1 and WW2. Things far worse were done by "our side". Even Habeas Corpus was suspended during the Civil War. Upon pushing the knee-jerk reaction to the side and doing some research, all the tinfoil ends up in the waste bin along with the stale popcorn. :tinfoilhat: :popcorn:


Suggestion to mods: Replace :tinfoilhat: with a Jiffy Pop brand popcorn container puffing up, if legally acceptable. :evilgrin:

closing Gitmo and Camp X-Ray. That seems like a pipe-dream in today's climate.

I will keep living it like I always have. If they want to take me, they can come and get me. I refuse to live in fear.

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?



Only one possible answer for me. I'm not the "going peacefully" type.

Then let me quote some Madness instead:

I'd rather be a free man in my grave
than living as a puppet or a slave