Thursday, May 9, 2013

Using National Tragedies to Propel Anti-Constitutional Agendas

by S. Paul Forrest

This was one of the topics discussed on Breaking Taboo - New Dissident Radio.  To listen to the show, CLICK HERE

It is a simple thing really.  We Americans watch the news to acquire some understanding of minimal what the hot topics are on everything from local to national happenings and accept the stories as truth.  Most of this news is comprised of to-the-point, quick snippets to fill our informational desires in a short period of time but when these snippets glaze over the details of those issues that affect our lives to a greater extent, it is time to hold media accountable for their delivery of disinformation and our politicians for the false agendas they propel.

Take as an example, the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings and Boston Marathon Bombings. There were indeed tragic events which continue to call into question whether we here in America are safe to send our children to school or even whether we can attend a public event without worrying we will be slaughtered like sheep.  Some measure of safety indeed needs to be instituted to make us safer but when our politicians use these happenings to propel their own, distorted agenda; it is time to examine what is truly going on.

To many of us, the Sandy Hook killings now represent a sad event where innocent children were terrorized and yes, slaughtered by a mentally disturbed individual.  Many were shocked and sickened by this event and politicians wasted not a second in vowing to bring an end to the violence by addressing gun control.  Sounds like a great idea when viewed in a ten second news blurb but when taken to the next level of consideration, politicians put more into their efforts than the news ever reported.

After the bodies were counted and facts collected, many began calling for stricter gun laws.  President Obama was very verbal in this argument and has vowed to make America safer.  He has used this event to push to the forefront an agenda to control our Right to Bear Arms and has employed the media to spread the word of his valiant efforts.  When the Gun Control Bill was voted down in Congress, many shouted "Shame!".  The news stations have portrayed Mr. Obama’s efforts as honorable but upon further examination; they have proven to be far from that.  In fact, our President had already been in talks with the United Nations for the past few years to limit our Right to Bear Arms and has seen this as the perfect opportunity to propel his agenda to limit our rights to defend ourselves as the 2nd Amendment was designed to guarantee.


For those of you not fortunate enough to be able to dig deeper past the headlines, on April 2, the United States had finally convinced 154 nations to approve the Arms Trade Treaty in the U.N. General Assembly.  This Treaty does some very useful things like limiting arms trade to those nations who would use the weapons to kill innocents and war against other, neighboring regions but as pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, this treaty also directly attacks our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. 

The article; ‘Obama's United Nations Backdoor to Gun Control‘ states the following:

“…the new treaty … demands domestic regulation of "small arms and light weapons." The treaty's Article 5 requires nations to "establish and maintain a national control system," including a "national control list." Article 10 requires signatories "to regulate brokering" of conventional arms. The treaty offers no guarantee for individual rights, but instead only declares it is "mindful" of the "legitimate trade and lawful ownership" of arms for "recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities." Not a word about the right to possess guns for a broader individual right of self-defense (was mentioned).”

Congress still retains the right to reject this agreement and thankfully, given the reaction to the Bill President Obama has introduced recently, they won’t be standing for any efforts by this President to further erode our Constitutional Rights.

Now, before the reader jumps to the conclusion that this is a right wing, gun-nut supporting article, let it be said that it is not.  It is quite simply, a statement against the deception which has for far too long surrounded initiatives by the past and present Presidential administrations and their media based, talking heads to fool We the People.  It is time to hold accountable those news outlets which have been so reluctant to reveal the truth and recognize what our “representatives” are hatching behind closed doors. 

Case in point: The media has recently shown the defeat of Obama’s Gun Bill being met with shouts and curses by the families of Sandy Hook victims and those Americans less knowledgeable about what this Bill really proposed and have worked tirelessly to depict an insensitive, Republican controlled Congress serving the gun lobbyists instead of the American citizens.  Very few news outlets had actually explained what was in the Bill before beginning their character destroying onslaught. 

As pointed out by the New York Times, the Bill has much more in it than the television media is paid to tell you.  Although many of the initiatives make sense when looked at in a glimpse, the price tag will be extraordinary and the implications of its content are immeasurably destructive both fiscally and constitutionally.  Many House and Senate Republicans and Democrats did not vote “yea” for this reason alone. 

One of the sections of the Bill “directs the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks” and an executive order which “addresses (sic) legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which may prevent states from making information available to the background check system“, potentially opening up many sycophantic cans of freedom-quashing worms like eliminating patient-doctor confidentiality and our very right to privacy.      

In a seemingly tandem effort, the recent Boston bombing has created an initiative that goes much further than merely solving the case of a “terrorist” attack on Americans.  Again, the televised media has made no attempts to see beyond the hard plastic cover of the story.  Between the lines of President Obama’s talks of protecting Americans, the reality of our government’s solution involves increasing internet monitoring and street cameras for use in identifying assailants.  These reactive suggestions sound helpful when described in an informative short on the news but the oncoming “solutions” will most definitely attack more our Constitutional freedoms, if there still are such things anymore.

In this same vain, the issue of stricter monitoring and screening of immigrants has been heating up even though the accused bombers came here when the lone survivor of the two was a mere, six years old.  Some have mentioned the older, Tsarnaev had left the country for some time and returned “radicalized” so the Homeland Security should have been monitoring his actions since he was from an area known for terrorist actions.  So if we are to understand this mentality, if you are an immigrant from an area known as terrorist insurgency, they should be scrutinized and monitored?  Sounds like a back door attempt to get Americans to approve cultural, religious and yes, racial profiling.

Also arising in this flurry of paranoid reactions, there has been the suggestion to improve and increase police, CIA and FBI surveillance of our public streets and the internet.  The help of cameras both civilian and governmental to identify the brothers Tsarnaev, has spurred discussions about more surveillance on our streets to bring criminals to “justice” sooner and many are pointing out that the internet activities of the brothers and other would be “terrorists” could be the key to avoid another Boston bombing.  Seems we have been down this road already and most Americans objected this initiative but now, with the media’s help, we are creeping closer to Orwell’s nightmare.

Many seem to think surveillance is a good idea.  Afterall, if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t worry.  The jury is still out though, on whether increased surveillance would be helpful in most instances.  As pointed out by Heather Kelly of CNN:

Boston's camera network is smaller than those in London and New York, though that is likely to change soon. In 2007, Boston law enforcement had an estimated 55 CCTV cameras set up around the city. Since then, the city has expanded its surveillance system, though authorities there are not commenting on the exact scope of the current camera setup.

Boston's example has shown the power of these systems to help solve crimes, causing many to call for even more cameras. But it's still not clear whether they are effective at preventing crimes. According to the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Ontario, urban surveillance systems have not been proven to have any effect on deterring criminals.”

In fact, Ms. Kelly goes on to point out that “as reported in 2008, only one crime was solved for every 1,000 cameras in London, according to the city's police”.  Given this information, why would there be such a push for more cameras on American streets if it has been shown not to decrease crime?  It would be nice if Mr. Obama could answer that question in one of his charismatic, staged Press Conferences.

What is interesting about the Boston bombings is how the CIA reportedly knew that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two suspects, was a possible terrorist threat.  The Obama administration did nothing to add him to the watch list, though.  This “oversight” rings of horrific familiarity.  Much like 9/11 and the Bush administrations lack of action against the attackers who we now know they had knowledge of, some have suggested that the Marathon bombing may have been stopped if they had listened to Russian authorities and acted to watch these two young men. 

Like Bush’s using 9/11 to start a twelve year, two trillion dollar conflict, not to mention the cost of National Security and to our Liberty, the Obama Administration along with Senate Republicans, has himself begun to use the Boston bombing and the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy to institute a heightened surveillance state, propel Indefinite Detention, support drone deployment domestically and abroad, take away our 2nd Amendment rights and open the flood gates to allow a litany of anti-American efforts to pry into our lives in a transparent effort to watch not just would be terrorists, but each and every one of us.  

Each day, the news is filled with gun violence stories and tales of gun owners and wannabe terrorists gone wild.  Everything from a crazy man firing an AR-15 in airport terminal to 13 year olds conspiring to create chaos in their school, we are being inundated with tales of terror to convince us that an increased police state and a heightened surveillance state is necessary to protect us.  This is what the slow creep of fascism looks like.  It is also the same propaganda other aspiring Empires have used to fool the people into the silent surrender of its citizens.

The writing is on the proverbial wall.  We have already been down this road. We were there in 2002 after 9/11.  To fail in recognizing this ploy for what it is should serve to remind us all of that old adage: “Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me” or in the words of those who stood in Capitol Hill condemning true Patriots standing against the blatant attempts to negate our Constitutional rights (as if it is what this once great Nation needs more of); “Shame on Us!”

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