A Czar is un-American

A man’s substance can often be measured when he speaks to his own crowd. During a Town Hall Meeting for Future Employees of the Department of Homeland Security, Governor Tom Ridge, made the following remarks:

"I've had the pleasure, way back when, in the '80s as congressman, to put my fingerprints and work on the Stafford Act that directs the good folks over at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and have had the privilege to watch my great friend Joe Allbaugh and his extraordinary team respond to the tragedy and the horror of September 11th, 2001."

The 1984 Stafford Disaster Relief Act authorizes the president, after proclaiming a state of emergency, to send active-duty soldiers to respond to a crisis and serve under the direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In that fine custom of Executive Orders our legitimate heritage is replaced with fiat decisions for a very simple reason - DICTATORSHIP IS MORE EFFICIENT THAN "DEMOCRACY"

FEMA has been the primary apparatus structure that would administer the martial law society, dating back from the Reagan era. You have been told that FEMA has as its main role disaster response, but it is also responsible for handling US domestic unrest. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, has long been accepted as prohibiting deployments of army troops for domestic strife. Now, Ridge has just advocated a review of US law regarding the use of the military for law enforcement duties. Looks like the Stafford Act didn’t go far enough for Czar Thomas!

Do you remember the history of Ivan’s later years? His mental illness and fear of challenges to his reign turned justice into barbarity, and his religion into a foolish fanatic observance. Suspicious of his nobles and ministers, Ivan set up a secret police force. The force was made up of 6,000 men who dressed in black and rode black horses. Their job was to kill anyone who opposed Ivan’s policies.

In the wake of 911 Ridge gets advise from Ashton B. Carter, professor of science and international affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government:

". . . he will need measures ranging from better spies to sniffers of chemical and biological agents installed in subway tunnels, water supplies, and government buildings. For protection, he will need vaccines against anthrax, bomb-resistant building codes, and cyber firewalls to keep computer viruses out of critical information networks. He will need to coordinate federal, state, and local first responders to minimize the loss of life if terrorists strike again. America will need a NATO-like coalition of friends and supporters worldwide, and we will need to improve the economic and political conditions that provide safe harbor for terrorism."

Counsel that proclaims A Neo-Cold War on Terror, that fails to critize and reverse the empire interventionism of U.S. Foreign Policy, resembles the expansionist aspirations of Ivan, and will surely end up with a ‘Terrible’ madness.

Consider the Atlantic essay by David Carr - The Futility of "Homeland Defense" .

"Get over thinking that America can be made safe. Defending a country as big and commercially robust as the United States raises profound, and probably insurmountable, issues of scale. There has been much talk of "Israelifying" the United States . . . In all the discussion of building a homeland-security apparatus, very little attention has been paid to the fundamental question of whether 100 percent more effort will make people even one percent safer."

Since the entire premise for justification of Homeland Defense is based upon public safety, won’t it be in the national interest to establish policies that will lesson the reasons that direct hatred towards America? This country seems incapable of applying the lessons, hard learned from past failed policies. The "War on Drugs" has seen many czars. How well have they done? Eric E. Sterling, of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, states: What the war on drugs tells us, "is that people motivated by the most elementary of capitalist motives are constantly testing and finding ways to get in. Terrorists are as motivated as the most avaricious drug importer, if not more—and they are not going to be deterred by whatever barriers are put up."

The notion that a pro-active indiscriminate offense will destroy foreign threats is as absurd as the paranoia of Ivan the Terrible, which caused the murders of so many of his innocent countrymen. Do we Americans really want to turn our country into a duplication of the horror that is fortress Israel? Might support for their current political regime have more to do with our hysteria? The entire premise that the major peril to our country is foreign is ludicrous. The adverse consequences of Homeland Defense are real; while the risk to national survival are slim, often imaginary, and sometimes contrived. OUR true terror is one derived from domestic czars, federal bureaucracies and insane emperors - as they make war on their own people. Their only defense is that of their bankrupt policies and their own seats of power.

Tom Ridge will leave, but the position of ‘Homeland Czar’ will become embedded into the fabric of our society. He severs the "House of Bush" making plans to use Tsarist troops to subjugate dissent in the name of preserving and widening the reach of the dynasty. His Oprichnina secret police state will use FEMA to herd citizens, when the next manufactured crisis provides the excuse to trigger the Stafford Act. Ridge is no mystic like Rasputin, but his office will follow the excesses of that cleric. The Governor, when given the opportunity, will act like a czar. The role of director of Homeland Security will give unprecedented power over federal agencies. If dictatorship is more efficient than "Democracy", we will experience rule under Ivan. Stalin admired him, the rest of Europe believed he was mad. What is certain is that he was one of the most ruthless tyrants in history.

Before Ivan died he claimed the name of Jonah the monk. The paragon of Ridge will be our modern day Jonah. We may well long for the return of Rasputin, when the Department of Homeland Security applies its directives. How easy it has been to sell most Americans on the surrender of their rights, because of a fabricated phantom menace. "Tommy the Terrible" closed his comments to the town hall meeting with this: "Abraham Lincoln said at one time, at his second inaugural, when he told us that "the occasion was piled high with difficulty." But it was under those circumstances that he asked America to think and to act anew. "History will not escape us," said Lincoln."

God help the Republic . . .

SARTRE - January 19, 2003