The Immigration Bubble Collapses, The Garrison State Thrives (Updated, October 4)

The Waterloo Raid: Manacled illegal immigrants muster at an Iowa stockyard in the custody of Homeland Security personnel. As our economy collapses, immigration both legal and illegal is slowing down. Any guess as to the use to which the Homeland Security State will put its immigration control assets once the immigrant flood dries up?



It will be years before we can accurately assess the collateral damage done by the housing bubble's collapse. One likely consequence of the bust will be a sudden reversal of fortunes for a few cynical people making a living as immigration control demagogues as the tide of illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America subsides. People earnestly concerned about "border security" will welcome this news. Those capitalizing on such sentiments will greet it with something other than unfettered enthusiasm.


A report released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center validates a prediction made by some observers -- most notably economist Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute: Unauthorized immigration from south of the U.S. border would taper off with end of the Federal Reserve's engineered housing boom.


According to Pew, the size of the illegal immigrant population "appears to have declined since 2007"; further, between 2005 and 2008 "the inflow of immigrants who are undocumented fell below that of immigrants who are legal permanent residents. That reverses a trend that began a decade ago. The turnaround appears to have occurred in 2007."



Pew admits that it's difficult to compile definitive statistics, given that we're dealing with an underground economy. But if the trends described in the study are accurate, they follow the contours of the FED's engineered economic boom and its inevitable subsequent bust (which happened no later than August of last year).



Significantly, the apparent decline in illegal immigration comes as economic growth stalls and reverses in the United States, while remaining steady in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Another tangible indication that there has been an abrupt decline in illegal immigration from Mexico can be seen in the volume of remittances -- money sent home by Mexican expatriates working in the U.S.



As the AP points out, "Mexicans living in the U.S. sent home 12 percent less money in August, the largest drop on record since the Bank of Mexico began tracking remittances 12 years ago.... The Bank of Mexico said remittances will likely continue to fall in the coming months because of the `difficult problems the U.S. economy faces."


In fact, remittances have declined by about 30% since 2005. And between 2005 and 2007, the number of Mexican illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol decreased more than 50%, which means that fewer people are trying to sneak across the border.



What this demonstrates is that Mexicans, like all human beings, are both rational economic actors and human beings with organic attachments to particular families, places, and fellowships. Most Mexicans would probably prefer to live and work in their home country, but prevailing economic circumstances made it irresistible to come north of the border -- with or without government permission -- in order to make a living. And with America's economy circling the bowl, Mexicans in greater numbers are choosing to stay home.



This same principle is at work in the small but growing phenomenon of Americans who are expatriating themselves -- even pursuing dual citizenship -- in search of economic opportunity. A few months ago the Palm Beach Post reported that the same slumping economy that is encouraging Mexicans to stay home has prompted Americans, in increasing numbers, to investigate the possibility of migrating to Europe.


An estimated 40 million Americans whose ancestors emigrated to the U.S. from a country that has been absorbed into the European Union would be eligible for dual citizenship, which would make them employable throughout the Continent. "With an EU passport, I can live and work in 27 countries," explained Florida resident Suzanne Mulvehill. "With a U.S. passport, I can live and work in one."


There are an estimated 8 million American "expats" living and working abroad, a population trend that spurred the recent creation of a congressional "Expat Caucus." A surprising number of American Expats have taken residence in Mexico. This is "surprising" on account of the difficulty involved in buying property in that country as a resident non-citizen, and because of the all-encompassing corruption of the Mexican Regime, which I despise nearly half as much as the one ruling us here.


Many American Expats in Mexico are retirees. At least some American retirees have taken up residence south of the border after trips to Mexico to take advantage of cheap but satisfactory dental and health care (which is cost-prohibitive under America's corporatist/fascist health system, an illustration of the collectivist nature of our supposedly "free market" economy). Others, ironically, moved to Mexico as refugees from the housing bubble who bought property and homes in Mexico because they didn't want to deal with artificially inflated home values here. That's another trend that may level out with the end of the bubble, particularly after the dollar collapses after Washington bails out the Housing Bubble Profiteers.



Obviously, in terms of Americans emigrating to Mexico or the new European Soviet, we're discussing a very thin trickle, not a gusher. And just as obviously, most Americans would prefer to live and work here -- just as most Mexicans would prefer to stay in their home country. In both cases, the urge to emigrate is driven by the economic consequences of government corruption and profligacy. And legal emigration of Americans to other countries isn't the same thing as illegal immigration from Mexico or other countries into this one.


But the fact that there is measurable, economically inspired emigration from the United States to any degree is a striking illustration of just how collectivist, and cankered with official corruption, our economy has become. The effects of the economic downturn are being exacerbated by many of the punitive measures passed for the supposed purpose of controlling illegal immigration.

The demagogue and the Brownshirt: Arizona state legislator Russell Pearce with his close political ally, GOP precinct committeeman and neo-Nazi J.T. Ready. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, these guys aren't your typical immigration "reformers."



One splendid example is the imbecilic "employer sanctions" law that went into effect in Arizona last January 1st. Written and sponsored by state legislator Russell Pearce, an immigration monomaniac with some exceptionally pungent political alliances, the Arizona law imposes draconian sanctions on employers who don't winnow illegal aliens from their work forces. Offending business owners suffer the suspension of their business licenses on the first offense, and suffer permanent revocation of their licenses on the second offense.


Pearce has been clenched to the bosom of some "constitutionalist" organizations who, when the subject is anything other than immigration control, denounce government control of business owners through licensing and onerous regulation. The Arizona legislator insists that his law is intended to punish those who "put profits ahead of patriotism." But its actual impact has been to amplify the effects of Arizona's post-Bubble economic slide by driving employers to transplant their operations in other states -- or even, in an irony so acute it could serve as a guillotine blade, to Mexico.

Pearce's buddy in his natural habitat: Ready (second from right) and his National Socialist allies demand the Reich of way (see also below right).


As Barron's predicted as the Pearce-written employer sanctions law went into effect, the impact of the measure has been to curb illegal immigration by strangling the state's economy. This is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement for a government careerist like Pearce, who preaches "patriotic" sacrifice while living comfortably at taxpayer expense. But for people who own and operate businesses in the state that -- unlike government -- actually contribute to the public good, this transaction is hardly a bargain. Illegal immigration -- crossing a border to work without government permission -- has been a significant problem precisely because of government interference in productive society.


As the Mises Institute's Mark Thornton points out, the economic and social problems associated with immigration are actually a product of the welfare state and its subsidiary, officially sanctioned multiculturalism.


"The only national problem [as opposed to isolated regional problems] with immigration is government," writes Thornton. "Because immigrants are relatively poor they tend to pay less in taxes than their use of so-called government services like health care and education, and thus they increase the burden of taxation. We can therefore solve the immigration problem by simply eliminating government programs that provide [so-called] free services."


Earlier I referred to "demagogues" on the immigration issue. Such people can be easily identified as those who promote "limited" government in nearly every aspect of life except for "border control." For example: Such people can be heard denouncing our socialized health care and education system in one breath, and in the next be seen rending their garments and bewailing the fact that illegal immigrants "are ruining our schools, driving up our taxes, over-burdening our health care system, and ruining our economy."


Well, no: It is the government ruling us that is doing all of those horrible things through socialist intervention in the economy, with illegal immigrants (among many, many others) acting as clients of that system. And more recently, concern over the impact of illegal immigration has been exploited by that same government, in perfectly predictable fashion, to justify dangerous enhancement of its powers to regiment our lives and economy.


It is the government ruling us, along with its quasi-governmental appendage called the Federal Reserve System, that has wrecked our economy. A retreating tide can leave behind some very unpleasant debris. As illegal immigration subsides, the lingering residue will include a large movement of people poisoned with the kind of petty collectivist nationalism peddled by the likes of Russell Pearce (and abetted in the past, I am ashamed to say, by Yours Truly).


But the most important remnant of this period will be the sprawling apparatus of enforcement, detention, and harassment created in the name of immigration control, which will be devoted to new and even more unpleasant uses as our economic collapse accelerates.


A brief, predictable, and necessary update


To a reader identified as "Jay" goes whatever prize should be awarded for offering the comment I expected to receive, in more or less exactly the way I expected it to be expressed:

"So anyone who holds a degree of personal animosity towards any in the hordes of illegals invading this country is akin to a socialist nazi, is that it? Seeing how you just wrote an article decrying the use of the `threadbare trope' of labeling someone as Hitler, I'm a bit surprised you'd stoop to this tactic yourself."

That's not my belief, obviously, as the following statement from the very first paragraph of this article makes unmistakably clear:

"People earnestly concerned about "border security" will welcome this news [i.e., that the illegal immigrant "hordes" are thinning out and choosing to stay home]. Those capitalizing on such sentiments will greet it with something other than unfettered enthusiasm."

Jay, assuming that you're earnest in your desire to secure the border, lift up your head and rejoice: The "siege" is dying down. Now instead of directing your "personal animosity" at people who come here to work without government permission, you can direct it full-heartedly at the government that is destroying what remains of our liberty and prosperity, which is where it should be directed in the first place.

In addition to those sincerely concerned about the impact of illegal immigration, I mentioned opportunists of various kinds. The distinction I drew is explicit and impossible for honest people to ignore. My view has been that the "crisis" of illegal immigration is largely a result of government interventions in the economy and culture, and the facts I cite above seem to validate that view.

I should point out as well that I did not "label" T.J. Ready a Nazi. He did that to himself, for his own reasons. Likewise, I didn't choose Russell Pearce's political allies and associations for him. Nor did I compel Pearce and his political allies to impose that asinine "employer sanctions" law on Arizona, a law that is rooted in fascist assumptions (regarding the value of government control over businesses without outright confiscation of the same).

Video Extra: Who will "Trash Out" the U.S. Economy?

One growth "industry" in post-Bubble America will involve management of abandoned homes, both those formally seized through foreclosure and those abandoned by people who have sent "jingle mail" to their mortgage lenders. The scenes from California's housing bust depicted in the video below is going to be replicated all across the country: Contractors dispatching teams of "trash-out" specialists to remove and dispose of discarded personal effects inside abandoned homes.





On sale now!











Dum spiro, pugno!

Elmer Gantry Economics

Fleecing the Faithful on behalf of the Fed: Gary Bauer, prophet of the plunderbund.


A vast potential for infernal mischief can be found in some otherwise harmless adverbs. Let us examine the specific case of the seemingly inoffensive modifier "normally."



Incorrigible cynic that I am, I've long believed that any sentence that begins with the word "normally" is an exercise in deception, generally taking the form of special pleading. Whatever follows the word "normally" is something morally objectionable that I should summarily reject, but am being asked to countenance just this one time. Or so I'm being told to believe.



In a radio commentary for Focus on the Family broadcast yesterday before the congressional vote on the Economic Dictatorship Enabling Act, Gary Bauer quite generously vindicated my belief.



"Normally, we would not want to bail out people that made wrong decisions," Bauer began in his familiar tone of adenoidal sanctimony. In terms of making his case, Bauer lost me at "normally" -- but I listened anyway, as my enraged disgust took control of my jaw and put two very expensive dental crowns at risk.



"This crisis, if left unattended, could hurt people that made right decisions," Bauer simpered. "This [bailout] is not rewarding bad decisions. This is an attempt to prevent those bad decisions from hurting people that had no part in them."



Actually, those of us who had no part in those "bad decisions" are already being hurt. And we're in for much greater pain in the future. That much is out of our hands. The Uber-Bailout would do nothing to protect the relatively innocent and powerless. However, it would greatly palliate the deserved pain of those who are powerful and guilty. And it would end -- "temporarily," which in the lexicon of government power is a functional synonym for "forever" -- the ability of the common people to compel elected representatives to combat the schemes of the Bankster Elite.



The FED's counterfeiting press (or its digital analog) has been tirelessly churning wealth siphoned from our paychecks and savings into the butter it slathers on the bread of the corporate elite. This pilferage will continue whether or not Congress actually passes a bailout measure, as it probably will (most likely in a post-election lame duck session).

















The Paulson Plan simply proposed to sever the one thin, fraying thread of accountability still connecting the economic elite to the people it is plundering. That thread is Congress's constitutional role in appropriating funds and overseeing the executive branch personnel who spend them.

Paulson, acting on behalf of the corporatist plunderbund, wanted to snip that thread decisively, albeit with a grave sense of agonized reluctance amid a unique financial crisis.


Bear in mind, of course, that this is something Paulson would not normally propose. Heh.


Bauer's moral reasoning, such as it is, dictates that while it's a sin to steal a hundred dollars to feed your family, stealing $700 billion to salve the bank accounts of wealthy criminals is an act of Christian statecraft. Both of those acts are sins and crimes, of course. And it's important to remember that the Christian Gospels --regarded as the truth, or merely an interesting collection of moral teachings -- make it clear that Jesus didn't define sin on a sliding scale favoring the rich and powerful.



The remedy for sin, in all circumstances, is repentance -- acknowledgement of the evil one has done, an attempt to make restitution, and an earnest effort fully to turn away from the sin. None of this would be accomplished by the Uber-Bailout whose purported necessity provided Gary Bauer with an opportunity to display his utter moral idiocy.



Joining Gary Bauer in offering a sermon on the supposed virtue of shaking down the poor to comfort the rich was Christian financial advisor Rob West.



"I really believe that we will see most of this money returned to the taxpayer," West began in the unctuous tone of a practiced con-man, "because as they buy up these loans at a discount the government will use their balance sheet to hold these loans and then sell them once market prices recover and stabilize.... There really is good evidence that the government can get most of this back." (Emphasis added.)


This is an exquisite example of a multi-layered lie -- a veritable Napoleon pastry of prevarication, in fact.



Let's begin with the italicized words "taxpayer" and "government." When West began this exercise in artful dishonesty, he assured the anxious listener that the money spent to provide a cushion for corrupt financial institutions would be returned to the taxpayers from whom it would be taken. By the end, we're told that the money would actually be "returned" to the government. Obviously, this not the same thing as returning it to those from whom the money would be stolen.



In the middle of this noxious confection we find a blend of two related and thoroughly toxic untruths. The first is that government, through coercive redistribution of wealth, can inject "value" into something innately worthless, such as a pile of irredeemably corrupt mortgage securities. The second is that the inflated prices that we saw during the housing bubble were normal, and that the ongoing decline is an aberration.



What West doesn't explain is this: If these feculent mortgage bonds are such a spectacular bargain, why aren't they being snapped up by contrarian investors?

"Rob West? Yeah, right --
the guy's a flippin' idiot!"

Behind West's assurances we can find the tacit understanding that the purpose of the Uber-Bailout is to continue the process of inflation, the ongoing theft of the value of what we earn and save through adulteration of the currency. Yet West -- whose advice is worth at least as much as, but no more than, a Zimbabwean dollar -- maintains that the Bailout would have no inflationary impact:



"Certainly the American family has already felt increased prices at the gas pump and the grocery store. And I don't think necessarily that we'll see a marked increase in that just based on this proposal alone[.]"



Here we see West taking refuge in another mischievous adverb -- "necessarily" -- while pretending that "this [$700 billion] proposal alone" would be the sole and final act of larceny.



Like so many other sycophants in saintly guise, West couples his solicitude for the powerful with stern advice for the weak. It may be a moral duty to relieve the super-rich of their self-inflicted burdens, but the poor and struggling are owed no similar succor.



"One of the messages for the American Christian is that we have to heed the counsel of scripture," cooed West. "Take the opportunity now to make sure you live within your means. Take the opportunity to start paying off your debt and shoring up your financial foundation. Make sure you have some long-term plans."



All of this is impeccably sound advice, but it is difficult to see how any of us can reinforce our financial foundation when the FED and its accomplices can fatally undermine it through inflation. West is demanding that people support a policy that will bring their conscientious efforts to nought, and nullify any long-term plans they make.



The ever-deepening financial crisis presents us with an opportunity and necessity to do something that is no fun at all: Repent.
















Blessing the Mad Bomber: Gary Bauer (the gnomish figure in the center of the assembled Republican luminaries) puts in face time at a John McCain campaign event as a representative of Dr. James Dobson. McCain is a foul-tempered, abusive serial adulterer and unabashed warmonger, so naturally he received the support of Dr. Dobson, the nation's foremost Christian family counselor.


To repent, once again, is to turn completely away from one's present course. As individuals and as a nation we cannot continue to live on debt (or on "credit," as it's commonly called). There are already plentiful indications that American households are reining in their spending, foregoing luxuries of various kinds, and "hoarding cash." Banks are engaging in the same behavior. All of this is good and necessary -- and, admittedly, painful. In other words, it is a species of repentance, one the Big Bailout (and the subsequent interventions) would be intended to discourage, if not reverse.


Economic repentence, to be effective, can't be merely the private affair of the public. The government ruling us cannot continue the imperial foreign policy that has received the conspicuous benediction of Palace Prophets like James Dobson and Gary Bauer -- the latter being Dobson's representative in the neo-"conservative" warmaking network.



Why would a Christian political spokesman such as Gary Bauer miss such an obvious opportunity to preach repentance? Why would he choose to placate the powerful at the expense of the poor?



I suspect the answer may have something to do with Bauer's other affiliations.


Bauer was a founding member of the Project for a New American Century, the Beltway camarilla that was the womb in which the Iraq war gestated for several years. He is on the board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a group that wishes to organize the entire world around the nucleus of U.S.-Israeli military domination.


A similar ambition animates the Jerusalem Summit, an organization on whose international advisory board sits the same Gary Bauer. The Jerusalem Summit's chief objective is to create an Israel-centered, armed "League of Democracies." That proposal that has been taken up by John McCain, the deranged, senescent, foul-mouthed adulterer who won the endorsement of James Dobson -- the country's foremost self-appointed Christian family counselor -- by convincing a mother of five children, including a newborn infant with a serious handicap, to forsake home and hearth for the vice presidential hustings.


Like too many "Christian" Right leaders, Dobson and Bauer are devout servants of the War Machine, which cannot operate without the fiat money system inflicted on our nation in 1913. They profess to worship Christ, while serving Mars and Mammon. That may explain the double-mindedness displayed by Bauer and West in their homily in support of the post-Housing Bubble Heist.



On sale now!










Dum spiro, pugno!

Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part II: Perpetual War, Here and Abroad (Updated)

Two missions that should never intersect are those of the military and of the civilian police, respectively. The logic of empire ultimately demands that which our rulers have now provided: A militarized apparatus of coercion in which military and police roles are inextricably blended.


UPDATE

It's much too early to tell how this welcome development will affect the trends described below, but the House of Representatives just defeated the Wall Street Swindle measure -- something I quite frankly considered impossible.



"We have entered an era of persistent conflict.... [We face] face new security challenges influenced by the effects of globalization, especially in failing states and in ungoverned areas.... Radicalism influenced by extremist ideologies and separatist movements will remain attractive to those who feel threatened and victimized by the cultural and economic impacts of globalization...."

From the 2008 Army Modernization Strategy



We are entering the age of "persistent conflict," advises the Army's 90-page official report on modernization and strategy. Dr. Tom Clonan, the international security analyst for the Irish Times, usefully peels away the thin veneer of euphemism applied to that phrase, rendering it "perpetual warfare."


The Army document is an admission that our rulers intend to divest us of what few tangible liberties we still enjoy. James Madison's warning resonates again: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."


Had the Billionaire Bailout, aka the Mother of All Swindles, been consummated in the teeth of nearly uniform public opposition, the Regime ruling us would have achieved a Platonic ideal of plutocratic corruption. The Army's strategic preview still seems to anticipate this development, given its astonishing candor in expressing the ethics of the Robber State.*


In describing the mission of the military over the next generation or two, the document dutifully refers to the threat of a "radical, ideology-based, long-term terrorist threat...." Additionally, insists the report, Washington faces "a potential return to traditional security threats posed by emerging near-peers as we compete globally for depleting natural resources and overseas markets."


What proper role can the military play in "competing" for "natural resources and overseas markets"? The military embodies the refined essence of the murderous ugliness to which we've given the name "government": It is an instrument employed to kill and destroy, not to "compete." It can conquer territory, but it cannot create a market -- except in the crudest corporatist sense of reducing a country to rubble as a prelude to taxpayer-subsidized "reconstruction" efforts of the kind that have succeeded so marvelously in Iraq.



The vision expressed in the Modernization Strategy is a more elegantly phrased version of the familiar Ditto-head bumper-sticker sentiments, like "Kick their ass and take their gas," or "What is their sand doing on top of our oil?" (Another variation of that trope we may soon see: "Begin the slaughter -- seize control of their water.") Of course, that approach engenders terrorism, rather than pacifying it -- but this is an entirely suitable outcome for our rulers, since it relieves them of the trouble of dreaming up new pretexts for the wars they desire.


Seizing resources through military force is one of the best ways to destroy a market: Military control over a given resource is, after all, nationalization in its bluntest form. The truly remarkable -- and terrifying -- aspect of the Army's new strategy is the evidence it provides that our rulers have now embraced, without qualification, the socialist premise that the government's role is to administer an economy based on scarcity.


Here we collide with one of the defining ironies of our age. At a time when Washington now candidly admits its intention to acquire vital resources through military pillage, Russia and China, the "neer-peers" clumsily alluded to in the document, are acquiring resources through commerce, rather than conquest.


A case can be made that a modest, mobile military establishment is necessary in order to protect freedom of commerce abroad; at least, that was the view of those who wrote the constitutional provision requiring Congress to "maintain" a Navy. But the Framers who composed that provision were steadfastly opposed to a standing Army, quite properly fearing that an establishment of that kind would be used precisely as the new Army strategic document describes: To carry out perpetual war abroad, and regiment society here at home.


Granted, the latter half of that formulation -- domestic regimentation -- is not made explicit in the Modernization document. But it becomes very clear when key strategic considerations from that document are viewed in the light of the increasingly overt role played by the military in domestic law enforcement.


The implosion of America's financial system is now all but a moral certainty. The increasingly panicked corporatist elite have abandoned any pretense of acting on behalf of the public good, seeking to preserve their own power and plundered wealth by any means.


It is this corporatist financial elite that ultimately controls the legions deployed both here and abroad.


Recall again Madison's warning that wars beget "armies, and debts, and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many beneath the domination of the few." Yes, as Machiavelli noted in chapter ten of his Discourses, it is iron rather than gold that is the "sinew of war." But it is gold, or whatever prevailing substitute, that buys and bridles those who deploy iron in wartime. The creators and exploiters of public debt -- the FED and the nomenklatura it serves -- also created, and remain in control of, Washington's sprawling military establishment and rapidly catalyzing system of internal repression.



Acting through Henry Paulson -- soon to be our first economic dictator -- the oligarchy threatened, bribed, bullied, and extorted from Congress a measure permitting them to plunder the wealth of the embattled remnants of the Middle Class. According to a visibly and audibly overwrought Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess, this was achieved by effectively holding Congress hostage in a condition he referred to as "martial law":

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Whether or not Comrade Pelosi's expression was intended metaphorically, we have to believe that extraordinary duress was required to compel congressmen to support, or at least to countenance, the Mega-Swindle in the face of ferocious public opposition just weeks before those same congressmen stand for re-election.


It is relatively easy to neutralize the rebellion of a relative handful of politicians. But the public can expect no deference or delicacy when the time comes to deal with the social upheaval that will (not "would," mind you -- will) accompany the full-orbed economic collapse our rulers have now arranged for us.


Recall the excerpt from the Modernization Strategy document that was used above as an epigram, and note the reference to "those who feel threatened and victimized by the cultural and economic impacts of globalization." The imponderably huge heist being carried out on behalf of Wall Street is a splendid example of the globalization of corporatist crony capitalism, and its impact on our standard of living will be immense.


A large and ideologically heterogeneous movement has taken shape that opposes "globalization," as the term is variously defined and understood. We can expect to see this opposition become much larger, much better organized, and much more militant. And we can also expect to see these developments over-matched by an even more dramatic escalation in the tactics used by the domestic arm of the Empire's military.

(Continues after the jump.)














Here is the caption supplied by the US Army for this photograph: "Minnesota National Guard Soldiers with the 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 194th Armor stand guard to assist police in maintaining order during an overly-aggressive demonstration Sept. 1, in St. Paul, Minn. The demonstrators were protesting during day one of the Republican National Convention."


There are elements of the anti-globalization movement that, either out of ignorance or (more likely) ideological malice, target private enterprise as the enemy, and act out their rage against private property. Protesters of that persuasion have made their unwelcome presence felt at every significant anti-globalist event since the much-romanticized 1999 "Battle in Seattle." When they destroy private property and imperil innocent people, such protesters are criminals, not activists, and should be dealt with accordingly.


However, in recent years the prevailing "security" model treats the act of public protest itself as an assault on public order. That model embraces the use of "non-violent" means of crowd control -- such as the use of pepper spray, tasers, clubs, bean-bag rounds, and "rubber bullets" -- and the mass arrest of anyone found in a targeted area, whether or not any particular detainee was actually involved in a protest.


An independent journalist covering a Labor Day demonstration in St. Paul that coincided with the beginning of the Republican National Convention captured a striking example of this tactic: Militarized riot police detained nearly 300 people, without probable cause of any kind, who were sitting peacefully in a public park. In carrying out these arrests, the police were provided with on-site support by the National Guard. The reporter had to bury the video record of this event in order to prevent its confiscation by the police.


As I've commented before, the recently concluded national nominating conventions by the two retail outlets for the Ruling Party served as a coming-out party for the Homeland Security State's enforcement apparatus. It was also a foretaste of what we can expect to see as the economic collapse accelerates, if public resistance solidifies.


The Strategic Modernization document makes it plain that the ground-based military will be fighting among targeted populations, with "commanders employing offensive, defensive and stability or civil support operations simultaneously." This is the kind of hybrid mission we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia, in which soldiers are also required to behave as beat cops.


Boba Fett meets Halo? No -- it's one military contractor's vision of the U.S. Army's "Future Force Warrior."




In its new strategy, the Pentagon envisions the deployment of a new generation of soldier, a "Future Force Warrior" digitally interconnected not only with his command base and fellow troops, but also with a large and sophisticated array of remote, unmanned weapons, both aerial and ground-based. He would have access to intelligence provided by both aircraft and satellites.



Through the use of such "force-multiplying" technology, the military would be able to deploy small brigade combat teams (remember that term -- "brigade combat team") to carry out challenging missions within a targeted population.


Granted, the technology behind this vision isn't yet widely available. But elements of this approach have already been used domestically, this year, for the purpose of enforcing "public order."

(Continues after the jump.)















Support your local paramilitary bullies: This commemorative T-shirt, featuring a caricature of an abusive cop, was not produced by an anti-police group. It was created by the Denver police union, which gave one to each member of the Denver PD and expects to sell 2,000 more at $10 a copy. When the police -- who in this case were backed up by the military -- actually celebrate the abuse of civilians, it's time to admit that the government is at war with the American public. (Thanks to StrikeTheRoot.)



During the recent Democratic National Convention, a specialized National Guard unit of 1,700 troops, "Joint Task Force-DNC" (JTF-DNC) was deployed in Denver. Ostensibly there for the exclusive purpose of backstopping "civilian" law enforcement in the event of a terrorist event, JTF-DNC also provided "information such as satellite imagery to assist law-enforcement authorities, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the U.S. Secret Service," boasted an all-but-buried press release.


"About 40 Guard Soldiers assigned to the 1st Space Brigade's 117th Space Battallion have been preparing for the convention by monitoring computer images, uploading data and reviewing map printouts," continued the account.


These Guard troops weren't there merely to stand sentinel against terrorist attacks. JTF-DNC was sent to Denver following following several months of specialized training, including weeks of practice in riot gear at a MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) at Fort Carson.


"If there are [violent] demonstrations, these National Guard Soldiers will have to protect people and business from protests that could get out of hand," explained Lt. Col. Don Laucirica.



There were no "violent" protests in Denver. Yet the National Guard JTF-DNC was there, along with its array of cutting-edge weaponry and intelligence-gathering assets, to provide defense in depth to a contingent of militarized police.



The same configuration was on display a few weeks later at St. Paul, where the Secret Service and local law enforcement agencies liaised with the National Guard's JTF-RNC. Some 150 soldiers were deployed in St. Paul on the first day of the convention when the local police complained that protesters were becoming "increasingly aggressive."


That was the day, recall, when 284 people were arrested for the supposed crime of "aggressively" enjoying a late summer day without harming anyone.


"Our main mission is to support law enforcement," explained 1st Lt. T. Zdon, an armor officer with the Minnesota National Guard. "Soldiers in their uniform and gear provide a strong presence, or show of force, for local law enforcement, if they need us."


Spc. Ben Doran, an infantryman with the same unit, elaborated that the Guardsmen were there to use "shields and batons to keep crowds back. We want to use the minimum amount of force necessary to complete the mission."


"The mission." That's the language of a military occupier, not a peace officer in a free society.

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In his video-recorded remarks to troops before the convention, Brig. Gen. Joseph Kelly, commander of JTF-RNC, pointed out that the task force was composed of members of the U.S. military from all branches of the service, including some who had been brought back to the "homeland" from overseas. "Our primary mission," he told the troops, "is to conduct military operations in support of civil authorities.... [W]e are working for the law-enforcement organizations responsible for the security of the convention."


While the Secret Service was the lead agency, and local police exercised operational control, some Soldiers would be expected to carry out routine security duties "to free up police officers for higher-level law enforcement tasks."


"As during any other operation, you must take care of yourself, each other, and your equipment. Please, be safe," intoned Kelly, as if preparing his troops for D-Day rather than an operation on their home soil in which they would confront unarmed fellow citizens.


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In his post-convention message congratulating his troops, Gen. Kelly strained to extract drama and heroism from a "mission" that was little more than an exercise in adolescent posturing and gratuitous bullying.

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"There were some long, hard days," Kelly warbled, as if his subject were the Siege of Stalingrad, rather than a four-day deployment in the warm, placid, and comfortable setting of St. Paul, Minnesota. "Monday, September 1 -- Labor Day -- was a day of special challenge, and you all met that demand with skill, determination, professionalism, and in some cases, personal courage."


Once again, Gen. Kelly is referring to the episode referred to previously, in which police and Guardsmen surrounded and incarcerated hundreds of people who had done nothing, and who put up no resistance. Kelly's account makes me suspect that at least some of the Soldiers who participated in that event will be receiving service commendations.

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Some might contend that the role played by the Guard JTFs in Denver and St. Paul were exceptional, given that the conventions were "National Special Security Events." But this is to concede the fact that it is now routine for nominating conventions and similar events to take place amid an atmosphere of martial law.


Furthermore, the behavior of Guard JTFs at the conventions underscores the real significance of the permanent Homeland Security response unit that will begin operations this Wednesday (October 1).

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five "in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle," has been "training for the same mission — with a twist — at home," reported the Army Times. Remember -- the Pentagon's new Modernization Strategy emphasizes the role of brigade combat teams (or BCTs) in deployments among targeted populations. In the case of the 3ID 1BCT, the new mission for the next year will be serving under the US Army North as an "on-call federal response force" to deal with contingencies ranging from natural disasters to terrorism to ... widescale civilian rebellion.

No, the third contingency is not explicitly stated. In fact, the official posture of the Army is that the "response force" would be devoted entirely to dealing with contingencies beyond the competence of local law enforcement -- natural catastrophes or unconventional weapons attacks.

Patti Bielling, Chief of Media Operations for the US Army North, informed Pro Libertate that the force would be on call to deal with "a catastrophic incident and in support of a civilian agency. Posse Comitatus applies [meaning that the military personnel would not be directly involved in law enforcement]. The role of federal DOD forces in a civil support mission is to save lives, reduce human suffering and mitigate great property damage. Likely ... missions would be air evacuation, medical response, decontamination, logistics support, and transportation."

However, the commander of the unit has a very different perception of the mission.

As noted by the Army Times, "the 1BCT'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 nonlethal 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.' The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets."

None of this has any necessary connection to post-WMD incident response. All of it would come in quite handy in dealing with civil unrest. When I pointed this out to Capt. Carla Gleason, a very earnest, helpful, and professional information officer for Northern Command's Joint Task Force-Civil Support, she noted that the training and non-lethal hardware being provided to this unit will be used in Iraq, once the 1 BCT's domestic deployment ends and they're rotated overseas once again.

Here's why no solace can be found in that explanation: The skills and hardware in question can, and most likely will, be employed both in Iraq and here at home, as the National Command Authority sees fit. They can be used to subdue unruly Iraqis who display their lack of "gratitude" for the occupation of their country, or unruly Americans who object to the destruction of their economic future in order to preserve the perquisites of the Power Elite.

It is impossible to maintain a republic at home while supporting an empire abroad. Imperial commitments abroad inevitably mean the corruption of the currency, the destruction of the rule of law, the liquidation of the middle class, and a descent into national bankruptcy, undisguised oligarchical rule, and the imposition of some variety of martial law.

We are likely to learn, very soon, in very painful ways, we enjoy no happy immunity to the consequences of the policies we have permitted our rulers to impose on us.

*This paragraph was revised from the original version, which was written before Congress rejected the Wall Street Swindle Enabling Act.

Here's how it read originally: "With the consummation of the Mother of All Swindles, achieved in the teeth of nearly uniform public opposition, the Regime ruling us has realized what may be the Platonic ideal of plutocratic corruption. The Army's strategic preview seems to have anticipated this development, given its astonishing candor in expressing the ethics of the Robber State."

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Dum spiro, pugno!