A Clear Pattern Of Attack On Civil Liberties

In my view, there is a persistent and comprehensive attack on civil liberties in our nation. Whether we want to take notice or not, this pattern of attack is consistent with the rise of fascism in our nation.

Yesterday the History Channel aired a series of programs on Nazi Germany and the Hitler regime. During one of these programs the methodology of instilling Hitler as the "Fuhrer" was outlined. The same dynamics outlined as leading to the rise of Hitler's fascism is currently underway in the US. The only dynamic that was a bit different was the control of the media. In Nazi Germany the control over the media was all but absolute. Here in the US, the control of the media is more of a propaganda influence and payment plan. Corporate sponsorship and government attacks on the freedom of the press are the tools for control rather than government management and direct control over the press, as was the case in Nazi Germany. The matter of control is also the basis for so many attacks and decisions against bloggers and alternative reporting. The marketplace of ideas is no longer wide open and available for the masses to sift through for the truth.

If we take a careful look at what has been happening in our nation, we can see that, like Hitler, there is a parallel approach to international affairs as was used by Hitler. Hitler used falsified and concocted reasons for invading Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium and Russia, as well as the annexation of Austria. In the case of Poland, the first to be invaded, Hitler actually staged invasions by Polish troops and spread propaganda regarding the threat Poland posed to Germany. The parallel between Hitler's excuses and George W. Bush's rationale (and propaganda) for invading Iraq is stark and striking.

Then, too, Hitler saw threats to Germany everywhere. He claimed to have a better vision for world order that needed to be forced upon the rest of the world. Indeed, the regime change and threat reduction components of the Bush Doctrine that serves as the justification for intervention in Iraq, the enticement of conflict with Iraq, and the whole hawkish approach to world disorder parallels Hitler's tactics and dynamics. While the propaganda and specifics for these actions on the part of the Bush administration are different, the attitudes, the failure of officials to reject the arguments on constitutional principle, the violation of the Constitution and international treaties, as well as stubborn, intransigent and defiant stance taken by Bush in the face of overwhelming disapproval by a majority of Americans all point to the parallel to the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany and the United States. The fact that Bush argues the case for threats to our nation and national interest around every corner speaks volumes to the fascism he seeks to impose.

While Bush may not be as inherently maniacal and evil as Hitler, there are the dynamics of corporatism (where corporations and the wealthy elite are treated differently than the average American), profound secrecy, the gradual erosion of rights and standing precedents of law, the stacking of government positions with ideologues committed to Bush's vision, and the disregard of the will of the people all parallel the dynamics used by Hitler and his gang of fascists.

Consider the dynamics illustrated by the following articles and reports. See if the dynamics I cited above are not present and if there is not a clear pattern of overall erosion and all out attack on basic rights.

US Law Deans 'Appalled' By Stimson Criticism Of Law Firms For Representing Detainees

More than 130 deans of US law schools signed a statement released Monday expressing their dismay at comments made last week by DOD Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs Charles "Cully" Stimson in a radio interview criticizing top US law firms for providing pro bono representation to Guantanamo detainees. "We," the deans wrote, are appalled by the January 11, 2007 statement of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles "Cully" Stimson, criticizing law firms for their pro bono representation of suspected terrorist detainees and encouraging corporate executives to force these law firms to choose between their pro bono and paying clients.

As law deans and professors, we find Secretary Stimson’s statement to be contrary to basic tenets of American law. We teach our students that lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure that even the most despised and unpopular individuals and groups receive zealous and effective legal representation. Our American legal tradition has honored lawyers who, despite their personal beliefs, have zealously represented mass murderers, suspected terrorists, and Nazi marchers. At this moment in time, when our courts have endorsed the right of the Guantanamo detainees to be heard in courts of law, it is critical that qualified lawyers provide effective representation to these individuals. By doing so, these lawyers protect not only the rights of the detainees, but also our shared constitutional principles. In a free and democratic society, government officials should not encourage intimidation of or retaliation against lawyers who are fulfilling their pro bono obligations.

Clearly a case where Bush administration officials are advocating for the denial of basic rights.


Lawyers For US Marines Squad Leader Call For Probe Of Haditha Report Leak

Similar to the leak of Valerie Plame's status as an operative of the CIA for political reasons of revenge and manipulation, the leaks coming out of the Bush administration are conscious and deliberate efforts to control the media.

Attorneys for Marine Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, charged with the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha, have asked Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis to launch an investigation into the leak of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) report after the Washington Post earlier this month printed photos of Iraqis allegedly killed by Wuterich. One of the photos had not yet been made public, and Wuterich's lawyers have expressed concern that the leak could impair the integrity of court-martial proceedings. Wuterich was one of eight Marines charged last month in connection with the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

Defense Secretary, In Afghan Capital, Scolds Iran

Like the trumped up charges against Poland and other countries slated for invasion during the Hitler regime, the staged capture of Iranian diplomats and the claims that they were a) not diplomats, b) engaged in disruption of Iraq's affairs and c) supporting insurgents, Al-Qaeda or various militias has given rise to saber rattling that starts to build a case for conflict with yet another nation that is opposed to the current US foreign policy and manner of dealing with international affairs.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that Iran was “acting in a very negative way” in the Middle East and that the United States was building up its forces to demonstrate its resolve to remain in the Persian Gulf.

“The Iranians clearly believe that we are tied down in Iraq, that they have the initiative, that they’re in a position to press us in many ways,” Mr. Gates said, speaking to reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels before flying here. “We are simply trying to communicate to the region that we are going to be there for a long time.”

Delivering that message to Iran — and to allies in the region worried that Washington is consumed with stabilizing Iraq — is one of Mr. Gates’s priorities on a trip to the region this week that will take him later to the Persian Gulf.

Cheney Defends Government Review Of US Domestic Financial Records

In an ever increasing grab for power, and an increasing use of secret, warrantless surveillance approaches, this is merely another means for implementing the same techniques used by the Gestapo during Hitler's regime. In Nazi Germany there was no protection such as we have in our Fourth Amendment. But we are seeing a pattern of disregard and/or erosion, if not outright violation of our basic civil liberties, human rights and constitutional guarantees of inherent rights... the very basis of our American Revolution and the foundation of our nation.

US Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday defended the Pentagon and CIA's review of banking and credit records of hundreds of American citizens suspected of ties to terror groups, calling it a "perfectly legitimate activity" in an interview with Fox News Sunday. Cheney said the authority of the US Department of Defense to review such records "goes back three or four decades" and was reaffirmed by the USA Patriot Act. He also noted that institutions which receive national security letters ordering the release of personal records with no accompanying judicial approval are "free to go to court to try to stop [their] execution."

Rice Speaks Softly in Egypt, Avoiding Democracy Push

In a typical pattern that has been the mainstay of foreign policy for far too long, the Bush administration is employing a double standard. Those nations that are willing to cooperate with the Bush Doctrine and go along with whatever plans Bush has in mind get a walk on the issue of human rights and regime change. Egypt has a horrible record regarding civil liberties and human rights, and is a hotbed of terrorist activity, as well as a haven for Palestinian groups like Hamas. Yet, the Bush team is willing to overlook these issues.

In the days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with officials in Egypt, the news media here were filled with stories detailing charges of corruption, cronyism, torture and political repression.

Cellphone videos posted on the Internet showed the police sodomizing a bus driver with a broomstick. Another showed the police hanging a woman by her knees and wrists from a pole for questioning. A company partly owned by a member of the governing party distributed tens of thousands of bags of contaminated blood to hospitals around the country. And just 24 hours before Ms. Rice arrived, the authorities arrested a television reporter on charges of harming national interests by making a film about police torture. The reporter was released, but the authorities kept the tapes.

Ms. Rice, who once lectured Egyptians on the need to respect the rule of law, did not address those domestic concerns. Instead, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit by her side, she talked about her appreciation for Egypt’s support in the region.

It was clear that the United States — facing chaos in Iraq, rising Iranian influence and the destabilizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict — had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority, Egyptian political commentators, political aides and human rights advocates said.

Anti-War Member Denied GOP Leadership Position On House Panel

Anyone that dares to stand up against bad policy or bad behavior is disciplined. Fortunately, the Bush administration only resorts to character assassination and denial of position rather than actual assassination, as was the case in the Hitler regime. But restricting access to power and legitimate authority is definitively a fascist tactic of curtailing the opposition.

House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has disciplined one of his party's most vocal anti-war members by denying him a minority leadership position on the powerful defense committee.

Hunter, a loyal supporter of President Bush and an outspoken hawk on the Iraq war, recently told Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., that he would be passed over for the Readiness Subcommittee ranking member slot because of his stance on the war, Jones said in an interview Thursday.

The Mentally Ill, Behind Bars

Hitler targeted the mentally ill and placed them under lock and key, and later killed them in the same manner as he ordered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, developmentally disabled, and political opposition incarcerated and/or annihilated. While we have not reached the stage of atrocity that Hitler reached, we are definitely moving in the direction of persecuting, segregating, incarcerating and, in some cases, killing the least among us. Further, we have reached a stage of fascism where we have far too many innocent people on death row and provide significant legal stumbling blocks that prevent such people from having evidence that proves their innocence from being heard.

Last August, a prison inmate in Jackson, Mich. — someone the authorities described as “floridly psychotic” — died in his segregation cell, naked, shackled to a concrete slab, lying in his own urine, scheduled for a mental health transfer that never happened. Last month in Florida, the head of the state’s social services department resigned abruptly after having been fined $80,000 and is facing criminal contempt charges for failing to transfer severely mentally ill jail inmates to state hospitals.

Ten days ago, the Supreme Court agreed to determine when mentally ill death row inmates should be considered so deranged that their execution would be constitutionally impermissible. The case involves a 48-year-old Navy veteran who is a diagnosed schizophrenic. In the decade leading up to the crime he was hospitalized 14 times for severe mental illness.

According to a study released by the Justice Department in September, 56 percent of jail inmates in state prisons and 64 percent of inmates across the country reported mental health problems within the past year.

Though troubling, none of this should come as a surprise. Over the past 40 years, the United States dismantled a colossal mental health complex and rebuilt — bed by bed — an enormous prison. During the 20th century we exhibited a schizophrenic relationship to deviance.

The Light-Touch Tax Audit

In a fascist regime, corporations and the wealthy are treated differently than average citizens. We are seeing so much of this in our society that it is quite sickening. In this case, the IRS--known for its tenacious prosecution of individual taxpayers--has provided businesses (especially big business) with a soft touch, despite the atrocious record of scandal, consumer ripoffs and notorious screwing of stockholders and employees.

With corporations posting record profits amid nonstop accounting scandals, one would assume that the Internal Revenue Service is looking long and hard at big companies’ tax returns. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

Since 2003, I.R.S policy has called for spending less time on any one large corporate audit, with the purported aim of auditing more big businesses. But as The Times’s David Cay Johnston reported last week, I.R.S. auditors are being pushed by the agency’s top officials to prematurely close audits of large corporations with agreements that they pay only a fraction of the additional taxes that could be collected. Dozens of auditors said they were instructed to limit their examinations to issues that the I.R.S. and the companies agreed to in advance, even if suspicious deductions or other questionable tax tactics emerged during the audit.

Industry Lobbies Senate To Oppose Cargo Scanning Rules

The pattern of easier access to our government officials and political leaders by representatives of big business is not only a GOP dynamic, but a continuing dynamic of fascist corporatism and elitism. The question at this point in the game is whether or not the Dems will continue the pattern. While we are hearing about a loot of ethics reforms, there seems to be little to no "teeth" in these reforms. Never mind that scanning cargo coming in and out of our ports is a 'no brainer' when it comes to securing our nation from attacks... and has been ignored for over six decades.

The shipping and retail industry is targeting the Senate with an aggressive lobbying campaign to oppose legislation that would set a firm deadline for all U.S.-bound cargo to be scanned at foreign ports -- a centerpiece of a House homeland security bill approved earlier this week.

Industry representatives said they were taken aback by a House provision to require all U.S.-bound containers to be scanned for weapons of mass destruction within three years at the largest foreign ports and within five years at all ports.

Ethics Fencing In The Senate

In Nazi Germany the politicians promised better conditions and reforms all the while Hitler was being given more power and eroding liberties and access to government. Here we see a similar pattern... albeit not to the same degree. Unfortunately, it is the Dems blocking reforms as much as it was the GOP that had a passion for scandal.

The Senate’s promising start in reforming its ethical shortcomings is showing signs of slippage. Senators ducked a worthy amendment that would bar members from putting family members on campaign payrolls, or see kin become lobbyists. The proposal was ruled unrelated to the debate over lobbyist and ethics reforms, which is hardly the case.

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America

The proliferation of SWAT teams, police militarization, and the Drug War have given rise to a dramatic increase in the number of "no-knock" or "quick-knock" raids on suspected drug offenders. Because these raids are often conducted based on tips from notoriously unreliable confidential informants, police sometimes conduct SWAT-style raids on the wrong home, or on the homes of nonviolent, misdemeanor drug users. Such highly-volatile, overly confrontational tactics are bad enough when no one is hurt -- it's difficult to imagine the terror an innocent suspect or family faces when a SWAT team mistakenly breaks down their door in the middle of the night.

But even more disturbing are the number of times such "wrong door" raids unnecessarily lead to the injury or death of suspects, bystanders, and police officers. Defenders of SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics say such incidents are isolated and rare. The map below aims to refute that notion.

Banks Gone Wild

In a continued pattern of favoring big business over the rights of consumers, banks and credit card companies have been allowed a persistent pattern of usury and extended influence in our political processes. And the worst part is that decent people are made to feel horrible about not being able to pay off this usury. Add to that the profiteering done by banks that insist on outrageous ATM fees and the pattern of big business corporatism becomes all the more clear.

In today’s strange alternative universe of credit card banks, the term “deadbeat” refers not to the improvident borrower but to the solid citizen who prides himself on paying off his balance every month. As anybody with a mailbox knows, credit card issuers make unrelenting efforts to lure accounts from one another as well as to establish new accounts. And what these lenders seek are “revolvers,” people like R. Z. and T. P., who are likely to pay little more than the monthly minimum — and who eventually find themselves in thrall to mushrooming interest payments, abundantly garnished with late fees.

As for the morality involved in lending money at exorbitant rates, the word “usury” itself has taken on a quaint, archaic sound, like “jousting” or “necromancy.” What happened?

In 1978, the United States Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision that freed banks to charge the interest rates allowed in their home states to customers across the country. This decision, at a time of high inflation, unleashed a national credit storm: states scrambled to relax usury laws in order to attract banks, while banks rushed to establish affiliates in states that weakened or abolished such laws. R. Z. and T. P. are the natural products of this unhappy change. One obvious recourse for people like them is to file for bankruptcy. There’s the stigma to consider, of course. But making such a move would allow R. Z. to end the harassment by the collection agency and both men to make fresh starts free of unsecured debts.

Unsurprisingly, in the 25 years since the credit explosion began, personal bankruptcy filings have risen sharply. Bank advocates have argued that this reflected debtors’ increasing abuse of the protections granted by the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. Personal bankruptcies, said the industry, were costing every household a hidden tax of $400 a year, in the form of rising prices and higher interest rates. It mounted a campaign against what banks called an “epidemic” of defaults by debtors.

In 2005, these suffering financial institutions succeeded in securing the adoption of new federal legislation, the marvelously named Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. Nobody who favored this bill chose to see that the bankruptcy epidemic had been produced in large measure by the banks, or that the real hidden costs were the usurious interest rates these banks charged borrowers.

Two simple comparisons demonstrate the point: From 1980 to 2004, personal bankruptcy filings increased 443.45 percent, which is certainly impressive. But over the same time, consumer credit debt rose a bit more, by 501.29 percent. In 1980, less than one personal bankruptcy case was filed for each $1 million in consumer credit outstanding; the figure was slightly smaller in 2004.

Bankruptcies tend to rise as amounts of credit rise. No mystery there, and certainly no epidemic. It all suggests that the bankruptcy code was performing remarkably well.

Round Up the Usual Lawyers

Shakespeare knew that if we killed those lawyers willing to stand up for the rights of the accused, the oppressed or those whose rights had been denied, fascism would be free to breed without restriction. Who knew that would be the mantra of the Bush administration and the pattern of modernity?

No one who has followed President Bush’s policies on detainees should be surprised when a member of his team scorns American notions of justice. But even by that low standard, the administration’s new attack on lawyers who dare to give those prisoners the meager representation permitted them is contemptible.

Speaking this week on Federal News Radio, a Web site and AM radio station offering helpful hints for bureaucrats and helpful news for the administration, Cully Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, tried to rally American corporations to stop doing business with law firms that represent inmates of the Guantánamo internment camp.

It does not seem to matter to Mr. Stimson, who is a lawyer, that a great many of those detainees did not deserve imprisonment, let alone the indefinite detention to which they are subjected as “illegal enemy combatants.” And forget about the fundamental American right that everyone should have legal counsel, even the most heinous villain.

Politicizing Prosecutors

The pattern of only appointing those that support the regime's extremism continues, even into the middle and lower levels of government.

The Bush administration has appointed an extreme political partisan as the new United States attorney for Arkansas. Normally, the Senate would have vetted him, and quite possibly blocked his appointment. But the White House took advantage of a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act, which allows it to do an end run around the Senate.

It is particularly dangerous to put United States attorneys’ offices in the hands of political operatives because federal prosecutors have extraordinary power to issue subpoenas and bring criminal charges. The Senate should fix the law and investigate whether such offices in Arkansas and elsewhere are being politicized.

Busywork for Nuclear Scientists

In a typical hypocritical manner, we are now engaging in the proliferation of new weapons of mass destruction while maintaining postures against other regimes that are doing the same. Who is to say which regime is more out of control? The Bush regime is mimicking the stance of Iran, India, Pakistan, Israel, Myanmar and North Korea... a "Don't do as I do... Do as I say" approach to world order.

The Bush administration is eager to start work on a new nuclear warhead with all sorts of admirable qualities: sturdy, reliable and secure from terrorists. To sweeten the deal, officials say that if they can replace the current arsenal with Reliable Replacement Warheads (what could sound more comforting?), they probably won’t have to keep so many extra warheads to hedge against technical failure. If you’re still not sold, the warhead comes with something of a guarantee — that scientists can build the new bombs without ever testing them.

Let the buyer beware. While the program has gotten very little attention here, it is a public-relations disaster in the making overseas. Suspicions that the United States is actually trying to build up its nuclear capabilities are undercutting Washington’s arguments for restraining the nuclear appetites of Iran and North Korea.

Then there’s the tens of billions it is likely to cost. And the most important question: Nearly two decades after the country stopped building nuclear weapons, does it really need a new one? The answer, emphatically, is no. This is a make-work program championed by the weapons laboratories and belatedly by the Pentagon, which hasn’t been able to get Congress to pay for its other nuclear fantasies.

Add to this all of the civil liberties issues of the NSA spying programs, the endless incarceration of innocent (at least until proven guilty) prisoners, the use of torture and extraordinary rendition, as well as the overt secrecy in which the Bush administration operates... and the pattern of fascism becomes all too plain and clear.