Posted on 09/24/2001 4:24:58 PM PDT by Rebeckie
Unfree Republic
by Jeff Elkins
Let the stench of Middle East flesh reach Paradise reassuring them that these filth have gone to hell permanently."
The quote above is representative of many posted on the FreeRepublic.com site in the wake of the WTC attack, and unfortunately its like is not uncommon elsewhere. Americans are angry, predictably and rightly so, but just as predictable are the side effects. As always, that righteous anger will be accepted as a beloved gift by the state and molded into tools of oppression.
It’s funny how that works. Every single state-sponsored war the US has become embroiled in has resulted in an inexorable increase in the power of the state.
It’s also funny that it’s always assumed that human behavior in the past has no relation to how we behave today. Why those people were old-fashioned, we’re modern, educated, etc.
The beginning of this repeating pattern has already become public with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. It has an ominous sound, that name, almost Germanic. (I can’t wait to see the uniforms.)
On April 13, 1917, days after our entry into World War One, President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to promote the war domestically while publicizing American war aims abroad. Bush has replicated that step, with this new cabinet-level department.
Under the leadership of journalistic muckraker George Creel, the CPI was a propaganda apparatus unparalleled at that point in world history. The CPI functioned as a de facto public censor, vetting nearly all published material about the war and helping to draft legislation such as the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. In the months prior to our entry into the war and especially after our entry when they were nearly criminal, antiwar viewpoints were rarely heard.
The same pattern emerges now: Penn. Gov. Tom Ridge will be President Bush’s George Creel, and just as in those dim days of yesteryear, he’ll have plenty of willing civilian accomplices. And after all, there’s so much more to censor -- Ridge will need all the help he can get. In seeking warriors for the front line of Internet censorship, Ridge needs look no farther than FreeRepublic.com. The atmosphere there is now poisonous.
Again, look back to Wilson's CPI. It encouraged businesses to spy on their employees, parents to spy on their children, children to spy on their parents, neighbors to spy on neighbors, and above all to report "disloyal," pro-German sentiments. State authorities banned the teaching of German in schools and changed German street names. As the madness mounted, those regarded as pro-German were hounded from their jobs, pressured to change their German names, beaten, and in a few cases lynched. Almost all cases of violence, while incited by the state, were carried out by "civilians" in the grip of war hysteria.
Along with this anti-German hysteria, Congress passed several measures designed to rigidly suppress criticism of the war. In particular, the Espionage Act, passed in June 1917, specified a fine of $10,000 or twenty years in prison for "whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag."
The Espionage Act was very popular in its day. It was cheered on by mindless lemmings under the influence of state propaganda. Their great grandchildren now inhabit FreeRepublic.com, viciously attacking anyone who questions the wisdom of the state.
Our Congress is considering similar measures under the rubric of "anti-terrorism," and as it was at the beginning of the 20th Century, the FreeRepublic lemmings of the 21st are cheering the morally corrupt politicians along.
It’s not just message posters on the site. The management of FreeRepublic has instituted a "loose lips sink ships" campaign, with new moderators patrolling the forum to delete posts that in their opinion are detrimental to the "war effort."
The FreeRepublic mission statement claims "We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America."
Sanctimonious hogwash. Everything old is new again – the keyboard warriors of FreeRepublic would be right at home in 1917 shilling for Wilson.
September 24, 2001
Sorry, but I don't buy into the safety over liberty argument. The fact that people die in war in no excuse for enslaveing the living.
How long have we known that security in the airports has been terrible? But very few people cared or complained. Did you look at some of the posts concerning airport security immediately following the attacks? People were blaming the government (I believe airport security was the airlines job) and demanding the government do something about it up to and including letting all passengers carry guns.????
Same thing is going on here. The government better not tap my e-mail but if a biological attack occurs in their vicinity the same people will be screaming that they government should have been able to prevent it, etc. If they're alive.
I have been extremely disappointed with the cries of " traitor" if you expressed the view that nuking Afghanistan might not be such a good idea. It is not treasonous to take with a grain of salt some of the rhetoric coming out of Washington. If Bush had said that this will be the war to end all wars I wonder if he would still garner the support Freepers so unabashely give. Cynical maybe. Treasonous, hardly.
Correction to your correction. Is that your assumption as to why the thread was pulled? I was under the assumption that it was pulled because of the BS demigod was posting. Mixed assumptions here.
Okay, let's look at it this way. I'm still posting on FR.
Sir, I have to disagree with you on two points here.
1)The military chain of command is just that. There would have been other ranking officers to fill the ranks. Fortunately, the Commander in Chief and Vice President were not harmed. Big shoes to fill there.
2)The USA would not have completely collapsed. The true fighting spirit of real Americans would have kept us on top. While it would have been a heavy demoralizing blow, we would still prevail.
Thanks for a great site.
I understand you served in the Coast Guard. I was rescued by the Coast Guard on December 17th, 1997 on our way to Tortola. We were approximately 200 miles west of Frying Pan shoal. We hit a container and floundered for 30 hours until after repeated attempts by C-130s and Dauphins to drop pumps we were pulled off by a Zodiac and bounced through a force 5 storm back to Norfolk on a cutter whose name I can't recall.
Do you recall the name of the boat that served the Norfolk/Portsmouth area?
I sure wished I lived in your world where you only have to worry about your own government and terrorists are morons on a budget.
A normal sized briefcase can contain enough Smallpox to infect thousands of people in an airport environment. And in a matter of hours those people have flown to every corner of the U.S. We're not talking people walking around in biochem suits and carrying tanks of liquid on their backs...we're talking someone simply walking through the ticketing section of an airport (no metal detectors yet) releasing death.
Have you paid any attention to any of the current disease outbreaks in Africa? Some of them are pretty serious and readily available.
And how many Muslims have migrated to this country in the passed two years? How many of them own a tractor trailer? Any idea? I don't have any idea. I do know one thing. McVeighs truck carried 4,000 lbs of explosives. A semi-trailor carries 40,000 lbs. I wonder how much death and destruction one single tractor trailer can inflict in the center of an American city? I suppose no trucks drive through your city.
How about a windbreaker? Easy to detect a windbreaker? Well for years Islamic extremists have had no problem taping explosives to their bodies in Israel, putting on a windbreaker, then getting in line with a bunch of kids and turning them into hamburger.
But we wouldn't want to hinder you rights in anyway to stop these things.
No idea which cutter that could have been since there are several cutters and patrol boats in that area.
Would you mind defining the "American Empire" and the sovereign states we have colonized?
Not a bad boat but not a great one...excellent crews make them better than they really are.
Anyone can walk into the middle of a crowd and kill so many. All they need is a small amount of explosive, the will to carry out the attack, and a crowd.
See you later.
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