. He nails all of the key points.
Harman's bill contends that the United States will soon have to deal with home grown terrorists and that something must be done to anticipate and neutralize the problem. The act deals with the issue through the creation of a congressional commission that will be empowered to hold hearings, conduct investigations, and designate various groups as "homegrown terrorists." The commission will be tasked to propose new legislation that will enable the government to take punitive action against both the groups and the individuals who are affiliated with them. Like Joe McCarthy and HUAC in the past, the commission will travel around the United States and hold hearings to find the terrorists and root them out. Unlike inquiries in the past where the activity was carried out collectively, the act establishing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Commission will empower all the members on the commission to arrange hearings, obtain testimony, and even to administer oaths to witnesses, meaning that multiple hearings could be running simultaneously in various parts of the country. The ten commission members will be selected for their "expertise," though most will be appointed by Congress itself and will reflect the usual political interests. They will be paid for their duties at the senior executive pay scale level and will have staffs and consultants to assist them. Harman's bill does not spell out terrorist behavior and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what isn't. Language inserted in the act does partially define "homegrown terrorism" as "planning" or "threatening" to use force to promote a political objective, meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the terrorist label. The act also describes "violent radicalization" as the promotion of an "extremist belief system" without attempting to define "extremist."
That nails it, a commission (remember Joe McCarthy?) to anticipate and root out bad thoughts among the American populace. I still have to ask - where and who is the threat that we are rooting out? When and where has this threat reared its ugly head?
It has not, else all of us regular and mundane citizens would know about it. After all it is impossible to live in a country rife with real sedition, rebellion and terrorism and not actually know about it. Perhaps folks that question the validity of conducting preemptive war (contrary to proper Constitutional controls) are the ones the supporters of this bill are afraid of. Perhaps it is those that actually believe that the Constitution means what it says. It could be anyone that seriously disagrees with the "truths" our masters feed us.
Giraldi continues...
As should be clear from the vagueness of the definitions, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act could easily be abused to define any group that is pressuring the political system as "terrorist," ranging from polygamists, to second amendment rights supporters, anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, and peace demonstrators. In reality, of course, it will be primarily directed against Muslims and Muslim organizations. Given that, there is the question of who will select which groups will be investigated by the roving commissions. There is no evidence to suggest that there will be any transparent or objective screening process. Through their proven access both to the media and to Congress, the agenda will undoubtedly be shaped by the usual players including David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, and Frank Gaffney who see a terrorist hiding under every rock, particularly if the rock is concealing a Muslim. They and their associates will undoubtedly find plenty of terrorists and radical groups to investigate. Many of the suspects will inevitably be "anti-American" professors at various universities and also groups of Palestinians organized against the Israeli occupation, but it will be easily to use the commission formula to sweep them all in for examination.
Of course the focus will initially focus on the "usual suspects" but if you read the bill closely you see that the paychecks of the commission are tied directly to their findings. The longer they find bogey men to investigate the longer the commission exists and the longer the paychecks keep rolling in. It is thus with much that the government does - "results oriented" longevity is the thing that has kept many useless programs alive in our system. You can bet you bottom dollar that the targets of this commission's investigations will indeed turn toward many non-terrorist but righteously indignant groups.
The view that 9/11 has "changed everything" is unfortunately all too true. It has unleashed American paranoia, institutionalized mistrust of foreigners, and created a fantasy universe in which a US beset by enemies must do anything and everything to counter the alien threat. If it were a sane world, it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would believe that a Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act is even necessary. The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in strengthening law enforcement and intelligence capabilities against terrorists and has every tool imaginable to investigate and make arrests. It has created a whole new bloated and dysfunctional branch of government in the Department of Homeland Security. What is not needed is groups of congressionally empowered vigilantes roaming the country at will looking for "homegrown terrorism."
The only thing that 9/11 really changed was the pace of evolution from Republic to Empire started by Adams, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson etc. Bush is merely an heir to this bad ideology. Paranoia, blind faith in a defunct system, and general ignorance of basic civic responsibility and history among the population are the factors that have combined to make this all possible at this point in time. There is no reason for bills like this unless those in power actually realize that something is terribly wrong with the system and they truly fear that one day the mass of zombies occupying the land might just wake up and want to change things (with our without the consent of the rulers).
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