Yves right here. In case you haven’t finished so, please flow into the revelation that TSA has been partaking in a staggering quantity of pricey, terrorist-level harassment of former Congressmember and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. Matt Taibbi gave a long-form account of how the TSA repeatedly subjected Gabbard to over-the-top searches, feeling each article of clothes and her luggage….as if she had been carrying explosives!!! There’s no justification for this. The clear intent is to intimidate her into conserving her mouth shut.
Tom Neuburger’s piece under offers a very good overview. Nonetheless, I’ve some doubts about his concept that we’re in a pre-revolutionary period. The French Revolution got here out of left discipline. Despite the fact that there had been a interval of poor harvests, meals shortage was turning into much less of an issue as rising situations had improved. It was the king himself who initiated the cahiers de doléances that had been solicited by way of every of the three estates which then solicited locals to seek out out what their grievances had been. They had been written as requests to the king or prompt reforms. Later students described them as sometimes assuming the king didn’t know concerning the dangerous situations he was being requested to treatment. In different phrases, there was no signal that the legitimacy of his authority was being challenged.
Lower than three years later, Louis XVI was beheaded. And keep in mind that the standing of kings was so deeply embedded in societies throughout Europe they usually had been even accorded quasi-divine standing, comparable to having therapeutic powers, in order that three years was a really quick timeframe for this overthrow.
Much more on level is the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. In a brand new Duran broadcast, Seyed Mohammad Marandi mentioned in passing that nobody noticed the revolution coming.
So I’m nonetheless skeptical of the revolution thesis. Neoliberalism has been a terrific success in weakening social and neighborhood ties and getting folks to see themselves as remoted people. An increasing number of violence and riot appear nearly baked in, nevertheless it appears extra possible that the development will likely be in direction of anarchy and fragmentation, and never an organized or large-scale revolution. However, proof of the insecurity of our supposed betters retains accumulating. The FBI raided Scott Ritter’s house earlier this week. Within the UK, the federal government is contemplating criminalizing the retweeting of posts it considers hateful.
Scheduling observe first: As promised, I’m going to be away for a bit, so no or occasional posting for the following week or two. It’s August; time to see what’s blooming exterior these doorways.
‘Quiet Skies’
In case you learn nothing else this week, learn this, concerning the delivery of the Dept. of Pre-Crime in Homeland Safety. Spook state certainly.
EXCLUSIVE – Federal Air Marshal Whistleblowers Report Tulsi Gabbard Actively Below Surveillance by way of Quiet Skies Program
In an unique breaking story, a number of Federal Air Marshal whistleblowers have come ahead with info displaying that former U.S. Consultant and Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is presently enrolled within the Quiet Skies program. Quiet Skies is a TSA surveillance program with its personal compartmentalized suspected terrorist watchlist. It’s the identical program being weaponized towards J6 defendants and their households. Quiet Skies is allegedly used to guard touring Individuals from suspected home terrorists. …
The whistleblowers first shared the knowledge with Sonya LaBosco, the Government Director of the Air Marshal Nationwide Council (AMNC), a nationwide advocacy group for the Federal Air Marshals (FAMs). Based on LaBosco, not less than one of many whistleblowers is able to go on the document with pertinent documentation. LaBosco shared that Gabbard is unaware she has two Explosive Detection Canine Groups, one Transportation Safety Specialist (explosives), one plainclothes TSA Supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshals on each flight she boards.
The diploma of inconvenience can’t be understated. Matt Taibbi, who interviewed Gabbard, provides this:
This story started two weeks in the past, when the previous Hawaii congresswoman returned house after a brief journey overseas. In airport after airport, she and her husband Abraham Williams encountered obstacles. First on a flight from Rome to Dallas, then a connecting flight to Austin, and afterward completely different flights for each to cities like Nashville, Orlando, and Atlanta, their boarding passes had been marked with the “SSSS” designation, which stands for “Secondary Safety Screening Choice.” The “Quad-S” marker is commonly an indication the traveler has been placed on a risk record, and Gabbard and Williams had been compelled into intensive “random” searches lasting so long as 45 minutes.
“It occurred each time I boarded,” says Gabbard. The Iraq struggle veteran and present Military reservist tends to pack gentle, however irrespective of.
“I’ve bought a few blazers in there, they usually’re squeezing each inch of the whole collar, each inch of the sleeves, each inch of the edging of the blazers,” she says. “They’re squeezing or padding down underwear, bras, exercise garments, each inch of each piece of clothes.” Brokers unzipped the liner contained in the curler board of her suitcase, patting down each inch contained in the liner. Gabbard was requested to take each piece of electronics out and switch every on, together with her army telephone and laptop.
As each Gabbard and Sonya LaBosco, head of a Federal Air Marshall’s advocacy group, say, she’s not the one one to obtain this therapy. There are others.
Political Motivation, or One thing Else?
Each Gabbard and LaBosco consider that is politically motivated — in Gabbard’s case, retaliation not just for previous sins, however extra lately, for publicly criticizing “unelected warmongers — i.e. the Navy Industrial Advanced which earnings from struggle, and the Nationwide Safety State”. Bosco believes affiliation with January 6 is concerned.
My view: This may occasionally or might not be true; nobody will be positive. I’m sure the marshals assume their actions are good.
I feel one thing way more normal is concerned. Take into account: What occurs when a citizenry turns into rebellious, egged on by financial privation and a rapacious oligarchic class that won’t stand down?
That is clearly what occurred in France.
Regardless of the tip results of that Revolution, the method was a bloody mess and lasted a long time. It was terrible — greater than Liberty led the folks. They bought tyrants as effectively, world-historical ones. Nobody desires to reside in revolutionary occasions.
And but right here we’re: “Our captured authorities despatched manufacturing overseas to make our wealthy extra wealthy. They immiserated staff, let predatory home corporations choose money from their bones, and trumpet on cable information the one battle that gained’t harm their backside line. In consequence, we watch our events battle one another whereas the true perps, the not-yet-rich-enough wealthy, rake within the dough.”
This gained’t finish rapidly or effectively. We’ve seen the stirrings for many years, ignored (largely) by Democrats and cruelly misled by Republicans. (Oh, for a second Lincoln, or a Sanders with balls!)
The State, Confronted with Unrest, Will Do What?
However political events apart, think about the State. What does it do when inner unrest grows? What occurs when authorities consider their citizen will turn into harmful?
For this reason I don’t assume this clampdown is simply political. Sure, these concerned, even peripherally, in January 6 are receiving further consideration. So sure, conservatives might rightly (or not) assume they’re focused.
However there are many cause for our residents to be uppity. Take into account the George Floyd riots. The unfocused anger of the these made prey by the wealthy. And the large one across the nook: the mom of all storms, wealth-driven Local weather Change.
What’s going to “authorities” do?
That day is coming, the day when the general public calls for change, redress, retribution. How will elites reply? The federal government, together with its Nationwide Safety arm, can have solely two selections, much like the alternatives confronted by Anchorage, Alaska.
Elites who run the State can:
- Defend the residents by altering their coverage now, or
- Defend themselves and their mates from the wrath of their victims.
We all know our wealthy like we all know the again of our hand — as a category, they serve solely themselves. Why ought to they modify?
From an Institution standpoint, in fact, none of this may be allowed. No riot of an unapproved kind is permissible. Not BLM, not Proud Boys, not Cease the Steal, not scholar debt strikes, not Occupy Wall Road 2.0, not any exercise that represents an precise risk to the “nothing will change” apple cart that provides that means to the lives of the few who constrain the lives of the various.
The few feed on the various, surf with pleasure on the again of their compelled labor, and the bent-down many can’t be allowed to object.
How you can implement this constraint in pre-revolutionary occasions? The Riot of January 6 is offering the right excuse to clamp down on any objection to “the best way issues have all the time been.”
However greater than that, the one-time occasion of the riot permits a radical and everlasting redefinition of political crime — not as an act of violence, however an act of thought. We’re getting into the world of pre-emptive arrest, incarceration and prosecution for the political crime of being on the “path to radicalization.”
We might not be at pre-emptive arrest (so far as I do know), however because the Gabbard case reveals, we’ve reached pre-emptive harassment ad infinitum. And right here we’re.
