You Know You're In Trouble When...

This is truly scary.

Gary Wills, arch Old-Guard Conservative (with a capital C) and NY Times op-ed columnist, has seen the light about the American police state. When Wills raises the alarm, you know we're really in trouble.

Please read the entire article; it is more than worth your time.

I'll just post a few excerpts here, though I'd like to repost the entire essay:

When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.

But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.

There has never been an executive branch more fetishistic about secrecy than the Bush-Cheney one. The secrecy has been used to throw a veil over detentions, “renditions,” suspension of the Geneva Conventions and of habeas corpus, torture and warrantless wiretaps. We hear again the refrain so common in the other wars — If you knew what we know, you would see how justified all our actions are.

But we can never know what they know. We do not have sufficient clearance.

The United States of America has been governed under a "State of Emergency" for over thirty years. Bet you didn't know that. But I bet you can guess what kind of powers that allows the executive.

Home of the free? Don't make me laugh--or cry.

A note on the photo: Yes, the badge is real. FEMA is a national police agency. Welcome to 1984 folks, just a few decades late, is all. (And by the way, the triangle in a circle above the eagle is, you guessed, it, an occult symbol.)