Birth of a Death Squad

This is how it starts:

Feb. 13, 2006 issue - In the latest twist in the debate over presidential powers, a Justice Department official suggested that in certain circumstances, the president might have the power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the United States. Steven Bradbury, acting head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, went to a closed-door Senate intelligence committee meeting last week to defend President George W. Bush's surveillance program. During the briefing, said administration and Capitol Hill officials (who declined to be identified because the session was private), California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Bradbury questions about the extent of presidential powers to fight Al Qaeda; could Bush, for instance, order the killing of a Qaeda suspect known to be on U.S. soil? Bradbury replied that he believed Bush could indeed do this, at least in certain circumstances.

For all the press emphasis on George W. Bush feeling the sting of his failed, blood-drenched policies (they are legend now, no list necessary), our supreme leader should be, and probably is, happier than a pig in shit.

Below are just a few examples of terrorists as described by the Fascist Right:

• Seymour Hersh
  
  
• National Education Association
  
  
• Anti-War Protestors
  
  
• Everyone in San Francisco's Coit Tower
  
  
• NSA Whistleblowers
  
  
• PETA
  
  
• Liberals
  

And so on.

We are quickly moving toward the point at which eliminationist rhetoric becomes eliminationist policy. This is Fascism's natural course and no one should be surprised, though we will be, when that knock comes at the door and we are escorted away never to be seen or heard from again. Those of you who are really important might even get the Cliff Baxter treatment. When it happens to someone we love, we can write letters to the editor, beg our Congressional representatives for redress or - that ole liberal favorite - start a petition.

"Oh, but they're just talking about the extent of presidential authority," you say. Problem is, Bush, Inc., doesn't "just talk" about anything. It acts, and it does so with impunity.

See, I can say it and say it and say it but, with the rarest of exceptions, people flatly refuse to believe what has happened to this nation. This is what post-Constitutionalism is: Lawlessness. You have no protections, no legal rights; only privileges arbitrarily granted by the State as it busies itself spying on the All The King's Critics.

Our political representatives are now totally unencumbered by even the appearance of upholding and defending the United States Constitution. They - and we, by our relative silence and inaction - paved the way for the 21st Century American Police State. That we couldn't be bothered with stopping it says much about our prospects for recovering what has been lost.