A Czar is un-American
Is Ivan the Terrible now leading the bureaucracy or is Tom Ridge a modern day Rasputin to a failed imperial house? This
cenobite is faithful to the regime, but will his efforts bring salvation? More likely he will lay an egg, and not one of a
design that would make Faberge proud. His methods may be subtle compared to the Romanov dynasty, but his office may have more
lives than the mad monk. In the end, the results of Homeland Security will copy the Stalinist model, one that would bring
cheer to the legacy of that other despot, Churchill.
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
|