Thursday, December 20, 2012

Scratch a "Liberal," find a Fascist: The Case of Barbara Boxer





Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a bottomless fountain of foolishness, has proposed a measure that would permit governors to deploy National Guard troops to provide "security" at government-run schools

“Is it not part of the national defense to make sure that your children are safe?” Boxer asked during a Capitol Hill press conference in the misguided belief that this content-free trope somehow constituted compelling wisdom. 

She blithely stated that her proposal wouldn’t be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act (which was supposed to prevent the domestic use of the military for the purpose of law enforcement) because it would allow governors to re-purpose troops who are already being used for drug interdiction operations. That is to say, the militarization of schools wouldn’t constitute a new Posse Comitatus violation, but rather expand on an existing one. 

Boxer’s proposal to militarize the schools could have been taken directly from "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012,” a terrifyingly prescient essay published twenty years ago in Parameters, the journal of the U.S. Army War College by military historian Charles J. Dunlap. This glimpse of a dystopian future takes the form of a long letter written by an officer awaiting execution as a traitor to the junta that has seized control over the United States in the wake of military disasters abroad and socio-economic turmoil at home.

"It wasn't any single cause that led us to this point," writes the condemned patriot to a friend. "It was instead a combination of several different developments, the beginnings of which were evident in 1992.” Rather than de-mobilizing at the end of the Cold War, the ruling establishment expanded the military’s mission overseas and made it an even more pervasive presence at home.

Military personnel became "an adjunct to all police forces in the country," the officer recalls; social and economic problems were redefined as "national security" issues and brought under the military's area of responsibility. This is how uniformed military personnel became ubiquitous: People became accustomed to the sight of "uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood.... Even the youngest citizens were co-opted.... [We have] an entire generation of young people who have grown up comfortable with the sight of military personnel patrolling their streets and teaching in their classrooms."


There is a sense in which Boxer’s proposal is redundant, since armed “warriors” are already deployed in countless schools nation-wide: They are called “resource officers,” but they are taught to perceive themselves as front-line troops on a combat footing.

 "You've got to be a one-man fighting force,” self-styled counter-terrorism “expert” John Giduck exhorted police officers at the 2007 National Conference of School Resource Officers in Orlando, Florida. “You've got to have enough guns, and ammunition and body armor to stay alive.... You should be walking around in schools every day in complete tactical equipment, with semi-automatic weapons.... You can no longer afford to think of yourselves as peace officers.... You must think of yourself [sic] as soldiers in a war because we're going to ask you to act like soldiers." (Emphasis added.)

“Resource Officers” are not present for the protection of children; their mission is to intimidate them, and – with increasing frequency – make criminals out of them. A detailed story published by The Guardian of London points out that in 2010, police deployed in public schools issued roughly 300,000 “class C misdemeanor” citations to school children, most of them for trivial disruptive behavior, such as “inappropriate” dress and excessive use of perfume. Those infractions can result in fines, community service, or even time behind bars – and an arrest record that can ruin the student’s future educational and employment prospects. This is a splendid illustration of the “school-to-prison pipeline” in operation.

Although horrific mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School are vanishingly rare, “lock-down” drills in which SWAT teams conduct training exercises involving hostage or terrorism scenarios are increasingly commonplace. Many of those “hostage rescue" drills are better described as hostage-taking exercises, since they are used as pretexts for warrantless searches of lockers and student property. 

Child-killer poses with Sandy Hook Survivors.
 Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande, Arizona, held a lock-down drug sweep on October 31. As had happened before in other schools across the country, the students were confined to their classrooms, then led in small groups to another room where they were forced to line up against a wall and be searched with the help of drug-sniffing dogs. 

This exercise introduced a new element: Among the four law enforcement agencies involved in the search was a group of prison guards employed by the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest for-profit prison contractor.

Notes Caroline Isaacs of the Tucson office of the American Friends Service Committee: “To invite for-profit prison guards to conduct law enforcement actions in a high school is perhaps the most direct expression of the `schools-to-prison pipeline’ I’ve ever seen.” Clearly, the similarities between government-run schools and prisons are not limited to architecture. Posting National Guard troops around government indoctrination centers, as Boxer proposes, would destroy any residual pretense that there is a material distinction between "schools" and "prisons" in what is becoming an undisguised garrison state.

Like most contemporary liberals, Boxer is a passionate militarist who swaddles her enthusiasm for lethal force in rhetoric about compassion and equality. She can call for armed troops to patrol “gun-free” school zones without perceiving any contradiction, because she simply assumes that the rest of us exist only to serve the interests of the political class and its enforcement arm. It is their privilege to compel, and our duty to submit to whatever they choose to inflict upon us. This is what Boxer and her comrades have in mind when they invoke “national security.” 

 





Dum spiro, pugno!

19 comments:

MoT said...

Police are now nothing more than state "political officers" tasked with enforcing compliance, tax theft, and their every increasing diktats, at the end of a gun.

MoT said...

Oh, and another thing, Posse Comitatus has been gone for some time now. What Boxer is doing is flogging an already dead horse.

whitebuffalo said...

Financed and directed by the banksters, the War of Liberal Aggression (Amerikan Front)has begun.

The horrible CT massacre was the spark they had been waiting for. The blitzkrieg has been launched and Reichmarshals Boxer and Feinstein will be merciless in their assault against every liberty and every right.

We can no longer say something wicked this way comes. It is here. In force. And it will be even worse than expected.

Chris Mallory said...

The National Guard did a bang up job at Kent State. I expect we could look forward to similar performances in the future.

Aaron de Bruyn said...

@Chris Mallory: You beat me to it by a few minutes. I was going to say the same thing.

What ever could possibly go wrong? ;)

Anonymous said...

Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand (ok, well, MOSTLY irrelevant), but has anyone noticed that Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein are two of the ugliest women around? Are people from California completely blind as well as stupid?

My apologies to those who will recognize this as an Ad Hominem attack.

Anonymous said...

OBamaCare = Broken Oath
NDAA = Broken Oath
Ban Guns = Broken Oath

Why would someone who already has a Broken Oath care about PoNsi cOMA-t0ss?

Or regulating the monetary system or the rule of law or the US Constitution, these freaks are running under the UN AGENDA 21.

Anonymous said...

EDITORIAL: The Civil War of 2016
U.S. military officers are told to plan to fight Americans


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/7/the-civil-war-of-2016/#ixzz2FgxvRS22

willb said...

Though Posse Comitatus has been reduced to an urban myth
it never did apply to the National Guard or Coast Guard.

Reagan eroded Posse Comitatus by using the Navy and the
Air Force in the "drug war," "immigration war," and the
"tariff war."

Also, let's not forget Nancy Reagan's
declaration that if you use drugs you are complicit
in murder.

Further, it was Reagan that allowed the CIA to begin
operating within the U.S. rather than handing-off to the FBI.

While I agree with Grigg's premise that you can "scratch
a liberal and find a fascist" I have to add that you can
just as easily scratch a social conservative and find
a fascist.

Barbara Boxer and John Boehner are peas in a pod.

Marty said...

I hadn't read 'The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012'- thanks for pointing this out.
For me, this blog is preaching to the choir... in a few years, these kids will be our judges, politicians, cops, prosecutors, and teachers. Since their rights have been ignored, they'll continue this trend by ignoring ours.

William Hunter Duncan said...

To the list of fascists, you can add Lapierre himself, after today's speech. Moral lock-down, a federal database for the "mentally ill," and a commando presence in every school by January, indeed.

KP Ryan said...

How right you are, Will, when you state: “Resource Officers” are not present for the protection of children; their mission is to intimidate them, and – with increasing frequency – make criminals out of them."

Here in my little Oregon town with 1 high school and a few 'school resource officers' each week there's a rundown in the paper of what kids were arrested for on and around campus. These school cops have never saved a student from a marauding gunman or mob, but they are adept at arresting kids for marijuana, tobacco and even weapons locked away in their cars.

Back when I was in high school we had our own version of a 'school resource officer'. Brother Flanagan (aka: Black Flag) was quite adept at popping up unannounced in the parking lots or alleys behind the school's buildings. Rather than criminalize us, he'd issue a slip of paper entitled: JUG (Justice Under God), a copy of which was turned into the principal's office. JUG granted us the right to spend a few hours after school for a week cleaning restrooms and washing windows - anything to help the school janitors.

But, free labor does little to help the State like a young man's travels thru the Justice System.

As for babbling Boxer, I find it (somewhat) ironic that her call differs little from the NRA's call for armed cops to patrol every school in the country. At this point in time I see little difference between armed thugs, whether employed by a city, county or state or those employed by the FEDS. Both ideas are horrific for a number of reasons.

Finally, now is a good time to watch this video again : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw-jTCNZSmY and wish they were all as 'professional enough' as this one.

Rich said...

I suspect if you took that gavel and tapped her on the head, you would hear the sound of wood. These people are completely stupid. Yeah, and as Will said, notice the contradiction; guns in schools are bad, unless a government agent is wielding them. When you start doing things like "lock-downs", searches, hostage rescue training, etc. these are no longer schools, but prisons. Abolish compulsory public education. Also, the NRA is a joke anymore.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Grigg,
You are spot on! NRA is a joke. Ban anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs. There were no school shootings before kids were on anti-psychotic drugs. Kids used to have guns in their car to go hunting after school, now they can't even have one on their T-shirt! Get the police out of schools, we don't need another TSA groping our children! Ban violent movies...man they're getting awful! Dump Boxer & Feinstein!
Protect the Constitution!
JR

Anonymous said...

Will Comradette Boxer and her bodyguards turn in their weapons? (rhetorical questions are my favorite) Rules for thee and not me is the lefty mindset for all to see.

Anonymous said...

The local AM station has an active shooter psa but it is geared towards the workplace and not school. This commercial if that is what you wold call it has been on since late November. It is sponsored by the local sheriff who narrates the psa. My tinfoil hat is rusty and I can't pickup comrade Laika's frequency except on full moon nights but it does make you wonder how all of media is in lockstep from the behemoth conglomerates to the local yokel AM station. Always the theme of the collective and more control over our lives. Do it for the greater good, what about the kids, we ought to pass a law.

Anonymous said...

Scratch a "Liberal", find a Fascist.

That's seems to be accurate.
I think perhaps I'll repeat that.

What's the corollary, for "conservatives" and neo-cons?

Scratch a "republican", find a Fascist?

Dreamtime has such allure as to blind so many to this.

Anyway,

Merry Christmas, Mr. Will Grigg and family.

You've written some powerful and compelling articles which have blown right over the heads of many People.

I feel sorry for those People.

I hope some other People have slipped through the cracks and have been awakened by your words.

You're a truly heroic writer.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I had no idea they were doing this:

- then led in small groups to another room where they were forced to line up against a wall and be searched with the help of drug-sniffing dogs. -

These are East German's?
Or slaves on a plantation?
Or?

kirk said...

During the last century, somewhere between 200 - 300 million human beings were killed by govt/states with weapons in the hands of these govts/states.

During the same time frame,not 1% of those numbers were murdered by individuals using weapons.

The INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION from the above is:

GOVERNMENTS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED THE USE OF WEAPONS.

Boxer and all the other ignoramuses can go on and on, ad nauseum and ad infinitum about 'evil guns' and all the other lies they spew in order to justify attempting to disarm us all, but the informed will always know the facts. From this, it is then easy to learn the true domestic enemies freedom loving people face. The sad fact is that trolls like Boxer et al gain their traction only because of the absolute unfettered ignorance of the majority of those we call 'citizens', ever ready to give up all their rights for a few crumbs from the table of their masters.

With 'friends', or 'citizens' like these...