WE LOST! Thinking For Yourself Is Now A Crime! HR 1955 VIDEO

The parallel universe
The only serious competition threatening corporate media's monopoly on official "truths" – those pieties designed to narrow acceptable choices and increase social control – comes from the Internet.

"The news," as it's laughingly known, can tap into a seemingly endless supply of drunken or felonious fools like Jessica and Paris and OJ and Twitany to sedate its viewers. Then there's the occasional gruesome murder to balance the chirpy happy talk on miraculous medical procedures (which most of us will never live to experience because our for-profit insurers won't cover them), an always erroneous look at local weather, followed by 15 uplifting minutes on sports and a recap of the top celebrity screw-ups. The viewer yawns, feels a bit awed by all this technical wizardry and slick showmanship, and heads for bed thinking he's up to date on the stuff that really matters.

Mainstream media has a bottomless pool of "on-air talent" – perfectly coiffed, well-modulated, tastefully made up, arrayed in $5K worth of suits, ties and little flag lapel pins, strident and irritating as a hundred Ross Perots.

We have broadband, YouTube, blogs, forums, actual reporters, search engines, discussion groups, political organizing, access to newspapers published in actual free countries – all taking place in plain sight.

Over the past decade Internet and Web technology have matured and surpassed nearly anything mass media can offer. It's instant news, usually with audio or video, often reported by eyewitnesses rather than filtered by some blow-dried idiot. It's preserving what's left of our national heritage by archiving "purged" documents. It's subjecting every significant political, social and economic development to the scrutiny and analysis of the world's collective brainpower. It's the unifying element linking diverse cultures into an evolving planetary society not subordinated to states or lines on a map. And it's the universe's greatest source of jokes, one-liners and satire.

Governments' worst nightmare: an informed and activist citizenry
I don't see how the power elites can afford to allow this nonsense to continue for much longer. People with unconventional (read: humanitarian or peaceful) ideas are the implacable enemy of those sustaining their wealth and power by aligning themselves with the status quo, and these dissenting Internet pipsqueaks cannot be tolerated forever.

To our corporate masters, libraries, independent publishers and bookstores are bad enough. But fortunately for "them," libraries are under-funded and ill-attended, it's getting harder to publish unorthodox material in the US and many independent book stores are getting killed by the Barnes & Nobles and Amazons of the world.

Not so the Internet. It's become the alternate universe for hundreds of millions of people worldwide who know and understand that the official story is always and inevitably suspect. That altruism has never been a function of governments. That governments are always at war with "the people" they pretend to watch out for. That, as The Commander Guy pointed out in a rare moment of clarity, dictatorships ARE easier to run than representative democracies. That power exists solely to perpetuate itself and, when threatened, will defend its position with anything and everything in the arsenal.

Now that's a hell of an alternate narrative. And the Internet is the "plumbing" that carries these contrarian messages – and the seditious thoughts and attitudes and movements they inspire – around the world in less time than it takes Murdoch to count his latest billion.

Death by harassment
In July of last year, Bush signed an executive order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq. This expanded the administration's flexible definition of a terrorist to include anyone disagreeing with its "…efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." This apparently isn't intended as a joke, although I'm not sure that what's going on over there qualifies as "economic reconstruction" or "humanitarian assistance."

But it does dovetail nicely with "Endgame," as the Department of Homeland Security calls HR 1955 / S 1959, known officially as The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, and which contains – among dozens of disgusting provisions – these gems:

(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.

(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

Striking at the heart of the international terrorist menace, this bill targets the dangerous arch-fiends/grandmothers who participate on the hundreds of thousands of political forums, blogs or news and information sites that aren't exclusively devoted to singing the praises of Bush/Cheney and their merry band of imperialist oil pirates.

Note that this piece of repressive legislation – rumored to be the brainchild of the Rand Corporation and introduced by Democrat Jane Harman – passed the House last October by a 404 – 6 margin. Note that, introduced last October in the upper house as S 1959 and co-sponsored by GOP armchair warrior and domestic repression enthusiast Norm Coleman, it's coming up for a vote in the Senate early this year. If it passes, which seems likely, a Bush signature is a given – probably with a signing statement that says he'll ignore the act's few feeble provisions to combat totalitarianism, like this one:

(a) In General - The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Readers may want to take appropriate preemptive action before, say, downloading this article becomes a felony.

Spies, lies, and war
Lessons of COINTELPRO

by Sherry Wolf

COINTELPRO was the brainchild of J. Edgar Hoover, the founder and director of the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972. Shaped by the anticommunist hysteria in the aftermath of the successful Russian Revolution of 1917, Hoover took part in the Palmer Raids against radicals and spent the rest of his life in the service of espionage and undermining suspected "subversives" of every sort. Contemporary histories tend to focus on Hoover's maniacal egotism and closeted homosexuality to explain his lifelong fixation on repressing minorities who fought discrimination and reds who challenged the status quo. But Hoover's agenda was embraced by every president he served, including Democrats Harry Truman, John E Kennedy (sic), and Lyndon B. Johnson

The FBI, in close collaboration with local police units (sometimes called Red Squads), used a number of techniques in its efforts to disrupt and destroy leftist groups, the most important of which are enumerated here.

Eavesdropping. This involved not only electronic surveillance, but also putting "tails" on people and breaking into offices and homes, as well as tampering with mail. The FBI's intention was not simply to gather intelligence, but, by making their presence known in various ways, create paranoia among activists.

Bogus mail: FBI agents would fabricate letters, ostensibly written by movement activists, which spread lies and disinformation. The Bureau sent many fake letters to American Indian Movement (AIM) and Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders and activists that were designed to sow confusion and division in the ranks. The Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver wings of the BPP, for example, were split after the FBI sent a number of manufactured letters from disgruntled party members to Cleaver, then in exile in Algeria, criticizing Huey Newton's leadership.

Black propaganda: The distribution of fabricated articles, leaflets, etc., that misrepresented the politics and objectives of an organization or leader, in order to discredit the group or individual and to pit people and organizations against each other.
Disinformation: The FBI often released false or misleading information to the press to discredit groups or individuals and to foster tension.

Harassment arrests: The police or FBI often arrested leaders and activists on trumped up charges in order to tie up activists in legal and court proceedings, drain their financial resources, and heighten their sense of fear and paranoia.

Infiltrators or agent provocateurs: The infiltration of organizations by police agents served two purposes. One was to gather intelligence on the group. Provocateurs were used to try and encourage individuals to engage in illegal activity that could then be attributed to the group as a whole; to disrupt the internal functioning of organizations; and to assist in spreading of disinformation inside and outside the group.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/FBI/Lessons_COINTELPRO.html