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Updated
September 28, 2008
A weblog about the politics and affairs of the old and glorious City of Albany, New York, USA. Articles written and disseminated from Albany's beautiful and historic South End by Daniel Van Riper. If you wish to make a response, have anything to add or would like to make an empty threat, please contact me.
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September 28, 2008
Insane McCain And The South End
The presidential candidate wants the military to
kick down our doors and search our homesUPDATE - Some persons have said that this article is evidence that I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Guess what? I wasn't paranoid enough. Confirmation of the assertions contained in this article and more has appeared on the front page of the NY Times. Evil Dick Cheney was actually planning at this time to use the military to kick down doors, the purpose of which, according to the NY Times, was to completely shut down the Bill of Rights. "If you're not paranoid, you're not paying attention."
It’s not very often that the mutterings and insincere promises of a presidential candidate threaten to have a direct effect upon our individual lives. But every once in a while one of these bozos lets a little truth slip out. That’s why we gotta pay attention.
This past August 1st, Insane John McCain, the Republican who is attempting to continue his party’s occupation of the White House, spoke to the National Urban League annual conference in Orlando, Florida. During the question and answer period after his prepared speech, an audience member asked him how he intended to deal with urban crime. The addle-brained old flip flopper made a very specific suggestion:
“And some of those tactics, very frankly — you mention the war in Iraq — are somewhat like that we use in the military. You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control. And you provide them with a stable environment, and then they cooperate with law enforcement.”
That statement is pretty amazing, telling a gathering of black community leaders that he wants to kick down their doors. Less amazing is McCain’s open contempt for the Fourth Amendment, and his apparent desire to violate the US Constitution’s clear injunctions against using the military for law enforcement.
1st Infantry Soldier Kicks Open A Gate In Samarra, Iraq Okay, I’m going to say this calmly. Every time I read that lunatic’s statement above, or listen to the recording, I have to suppress the urge to run around the neighborhood with my hands in the air screaming incoherent apocalyptic warnings. And I also have to suppress the urge to stockpile weapons and booby-trap all the doors and windows on my house.
You see, that mentally incompetent old liar is talking about MY neighborhood. He wants to send the military into the South End of Albany, “clamp down,” take “control” and make me “cooperate.” He wants to do to Albany what his party comrades have done to Baghdad. And all indications are that McCain is not kidding.
Okay, am I worrying about nothing? Some lying Re-pub politico who can’t tell the difference between Spain and Mexico babbles some politically correct nonsense, and I’m going bananas. Clearly McCain doesn’t mean what he says, right? He wouldn’t set the US military against the American people, right? Right?
101st Airborne Soldiers Take A Break
Inside A House They Just Searched In Awsat, IraqActually, the military is on its way. According to the September 8 Army Times:
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
I see. They arrive October first, one month and a day before the presidential election. And what exactly will be the assignment for this battle hardened military unit?
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos...
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and non lethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”
It sounds like Colonel Cloutier is echoing Insane McCain’s statement. It sounds like he’s all ready for someone a lot like McCain to give him the go ahead and apply what he and his soldiers have learned in Iraq against the American people.
These “nonlethal capabilities” sound warm and fuzzy, don’t they? Like, they don’t plan to kill any of us, just “control.” But remember, these professional killers will still have access to a full array of deadly battle weaponry, including, of course, automatic weapons.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Jerald Harris Searches A House In Hawijah, Iraq We have just passed the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Remember what the White House did to New Orleans, while it lay prostate before the hurricane? The Neocon Republicans took advantage of the City in her distress and raped her.
Federal authorities cordoned off New Orleans, set up roadblocks, cut communication lines and wouldn’t let anybody flee the city on foot. As a result, people suffered and died unnecessarily. Bodies lay in the street, rotting in the August heat while the military literally stood by and did nothing.
Citizens were segregated according to skin color, and the dark skinned were forcibly herded into a sports stadium concentration camp. Most of these victimized Americans were eventually turned into refugees, and were provided with temporary housing only after the White House was hit with unexpected bad publicity. Their homes (many of which were undamaged) were bulldozed to make way for planned golf courses and upper class Mcmansions.
During and after the storm New Orleans was occupied partially by available National Guard troops carrying automatic weapons. But about half of the occupying force were Blackwater and Halliburton KBR, privatized military. By all credible reports these mercenaries contributed nothing positive to the situation on the ground, but they cost the taxpayers unbelievable amounts of cash.
Indeed, there was a conscious effort by our Neocon enemies in the White House to turn New Orleans into the unlucky City of Baghdad. Inducing and maintaining chaos for profit is gospel in their play book. It’s called Disaster Capitalism. And now Insane McCain wants to send Disaster Capitalism to Albany, to my neighborhood. To my house. To me. For profit.
23rd Infantry Soldier Searches A House In Baghdad So what would an Iraq style military occupation of the South End of Albany, NY be like? Let’s hear from a Marine who served in Iraq:
“We were told we’d be deploying to Iraq and that we needed to get ready to have little kids and women shoot at us,” said Sergio Kochergin, a former Marine who served two deployments in Iraq. “It was an attempt to portray Iraqis as animals. We were supposed to do humanitarian work, but all we did was harass people (and) drive like crazy on the streets, pretending it was our city and we could do whatever we wanted to do.”
“I was in Husaiba with a sniper platoon right on the Syrian border and we would basically go out on the town and search for people to shoot,” Mr. Kochergin said. “The rules of engagement got more lenient the longer we were there. So if anyone had a bag and a shovel, we were to shoot them. We were allowed to take our shots at anything that looked suspicious. And at that point in time, everything looked suspicious.”
This is a sampling of the Winter Soldier testimony earlier this year. There’s plenty more like it from these actual veterans who have served in Iraq.
82nd Airborne Soldiers Climb To The Roof Of A House In Owja, Iraq I don’t know what other comfortable Americans like me think about what’s going on in Iraq. But I would believe these guys and gals who lugged weapons around Mesopotamia and picked sand out of their butt cracks before I’d believe some dishonest politician or sleazy corporate media “pundit.”
What exactly was McCain saying with this crazy statement, who was he talking to? Obviously he wasn’t trying to reassure the members of the audience at the Urban League conference. I would guess that a major portion of that audience live and work in the very neighborhoods that McCain is threatening to invade and destroy.
Clearly, the Manchurian Candidate was talking over the heads of his real and present audience to another wider audience. This would be an audience that has contempt for Cities, an audience that fears and hates those of us who live in Cities. An audience that can be easily fooled into voting against their best interests by the corporate media.
In my experience, the audience that fits that description best is suburbanites.
There’s an awful lot of them out there. They ring our cities like parasites, sucking the economic lifeblood out our urban communities until our neighborhoods resemble the Cities of Iraq after units like the 1st Brigade Combat Team have passed through.
23rd Infantry Soldier Stands Guard At The Back Door Of A House In Rashid, Iraq Every single day vast herds of these suburbanites waddle into their foriegn-built wagons that burn foreign gasoline, usually one suburbanite per vehicle. They drive recklessly into our Cities, running over our neighborhoods spewing filth out of their tailpipes. They use every available bit of urban public space to temporarily abandon their machines, constantly and shrilly demanding that we tear down our buildings to provide them with even more parking.
And why do these bloodsuckers make this daily journey (“commute”) at great expense to themselves and at great harm to the world at large? When they arrive here, they huff and puff the short distance from their wagons into our buildings, spend the next eight hours sitting on their fat butts (“working”) and collect armloads of cash. That would be our cash, the lost wealth of our cities.
At the end of each day, these people tear out of our Cities with our cash and drive back to their ticky tacky crappy overpriced suburban houses that are surrounded by cancer inducing lawns. Once inside these isolated boxes, as far as I can determine, these suburbanites industriously flush this money down their toilets or toss it into garbage bags which they send to the landfill. Then they watch TV.
"They Love Each Other/ Lord, You Can See That It's True..." These suburbanites loudly declare how much they detest our urban communities. They drive through our streets and complain about our traffic. They loot us of our wealth and complain about our poverty.
They occupy all of our law enforcement jobs and complain about our crime. They take all of our teaching positions and complain about our failing schools. They infiltrate our City government and complain about inefficiency and corruption.
This is the audience with whom hypocrite McCain meant to connect by uttering that scary statement, his “base.” He is promising to destroy the Cities for which these suburbanites have such contempt. His handlers know these people very well, they understand that they will hardly give this dangerous evil statement much conscious consideration.
But I have something to say to you suburbanites, the few who have read this far and put up with my insults. The battle hardened 1st Brigade Combat Team is making preparations. McCain is ready to tell them to kick down my door.
What makes you suburbanites think that you won’t be next?
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