To Defend and Protect?

by

       M. Richard Maxson

      "Zombie Apocalypse" was supposedly, according to the government, a tongue-in-cheek take off on the popular movies and TV shows of the time. We saw the CDC, law enforcement, and government agencies running drills to combat the "undead" just in case a virus or some other unforeseen event would make this a reality. Cute, but why waste taxpayer money on such a thing? The true reality of these exercises is that they were training to control massive amounts of anti-government protesters in the event that the population would rise up against the Socialization of America. They want to be able to put down patriots who would rebel as is their right under the Declaration of Independence which states: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." This line runs chills down the backs of Democratic Socialists.

      Consider recent developments that are quickly becoming the new "normal" in Amerika. President Obama has dispensed with Congress, making laws out of thin air - surpassing the greatest violations of presidential power in recent years. Obama changes existing laws that have been on the books for years, e.g. the Welfare Reform Act, without Congress.  He writes laws, e.g. the Dream Act, without Congress.  He passes treaties that have never been ratified, e.g. Law of the Sea Treaty, without Congress.  And he even eliminates entire sections of his own healthcare reform law - all without seeking Congress to make amendments or pass revisions.  These actions make Obama a virtual king, potentate, dictator, ruler - and not the elected and accountable president of a sovereign people. Obama describes this new approach to government as, "We can't wait."  The U.S. Constitution was designed to curb unscrupulous politicians like Obama who believed their agenda mattered more than freedom and would if the Department of Justice wasn't corrupted.

       During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of

thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft. From California to Connecticut and several states in between, local police departments have been steadily arming themselves over the years with billions of dollars' worth of military-grade equipment. Last year, it gave away close to a half-billion dollars' worth of equipment to local law enforcement, according to a June report from the American Civil Liberties Union.

       The Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security equip even the tiniest rural police departments with massive military vehicles, body armor and grenade launchers. In the town of Neenah, Wisconsin, "a city of about 25,000 people," with a low violent crime rate that "has not had a homicide in more than five years,"just acquired a 9-foot-tall, 30-ton armored vehicle built to withstand land mines. In 2013, the campus police at The Ohio State University procured a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle (MRAP), according to the Daily Caller. The vehicle, which school officials noted was “acquired at no cost from military surplus,” has a gun turret on the roof and is designed to stave off ambushes and roll over improvised explosive devices. OSU was also the first agency in the state to acquire an MRAP at the time. The small enclave of Bossier Parish, Louisiana, has a .50 caliber gun mounted on an armored vehicle. Today, federal agencies of all stripes, as well as local police departments in towns with small populations, come equipped with SWAT teams and heavy artillery. This equipment is surplus from the long wars we fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Radley Balko at The Huffington Post, the number of SWAT teams in U.S. towns with populations between 25,000 to 50,000 rose 300 percent between 1984 and 1995, and by 2000, 75 percent of them had acquired their own special weapons squads.  

    “This militarization that we are witnessing — police officers dressed as soldiers, using military vehicles and

military weapons to engage largely unarmed protesters — is outrageous,” said Tom Nolan, chairman of the department of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Lesley J. Wood, in her book, Crisis and Control - The Militarization of Protest Policing, explains how neoliberal shifts in political and economic systems are militarizing the policing of protest. The book offers a way to understand the influence of political processes on police practices and provides an empirical study of militarized protest policing from 1995 until the present. “We can see in the streets that things are changing,” Wood says, referring to several incidents from the past few years—from the use of stun grenades on protesters, to armored trucks rolling through quiet suburban neighborhoods, to police officers’ use of Tasers while responding to a noise complaint. In the mid-’90s a lot of this militarization took place in police forces to deal with the drug war, and that was converted into dealing with public order after the year 2000.

    The passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2011 which authorizes the U.S. Military to indefinitely detain American citizens without due process and kill them without trial is a direct and egregious violation of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Despite federal courts ruling these new powers unconstitutional, the Democratic Socialist administration claims the power to use the CIA and drones to kill U.S. citizens and civilians deemed "threats" using the broad and ill-defined label of "terrorist" as their rationale. With the IRS scandal revealing that Republicans and Christians are now labeled as potential "terrorists," the question is, "will America continue to allow the trend to silence and control political opposition or is revolution inevitable?"