“Moral Force of Non-Violence” – Not Really!

-Bob Herbert in “When Democracy Weakens”

It does not matter what the people want. Peace is the spread of corporate domination and repressive police states everywhere and the obedience of the people. “We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.”

Where is peace, democracy? With over 800 military bases around the globe, with CIA operatives, 9-11 security and surveillance apparatuses everywhere, with U.S. corporate “humanitarian” or soft warfare campaigns in every hovel of the Earth – where is peace, where is democracy, rule of the people? U.S. nuclear subs underwater are on the ready and U.S. satellites spy from above. As long as the U.S. Empire is at war with the world’s men, women, and children, it cannot stand by idly and watch as populations seek peace and democracy.

In Washington, Obama, while excising the bullets, batons, death, and detention of protesters in Egypt, continues the assault on citizens here in the U.S. His eyes on that “moral force of non-violence” in Egypt, obliges him to gear up for that day when American workers open their eyes! Until then, he has ordered his Justice Department to know more of what Americans are thinking. Know what they are up to! More surveillance! Obama’s regime has relayed as much – although secretly.

Obama’s regime asserts that the FBI has the right to obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. and the FBI can do so – “without any formal legal process or court oversight,” February 11, 2011. According to McClatchy’s report, critics argue that this assertion is “flawed” (“flawed! – when from the White House standpoint it is dripping with urgency or rather charm!) and could lead to “a repeat of FBI abuses that should have come to an end in 2006.” A “legacy of the Bush administration’s war on terror,” this assertion, the report continues, assumes “many of the most controversial tactics of that strategy, including the assertion of sweeping executive powers.”

What in this assertion of the Emperor’s power reminds anyone of that “moral force of non-violence”? From Bush to Obama, the assertion of the Emperor’s power to maintain law and order among the people while clearing the pathways for Wall Street bankers and corporate war profiteers to help themselves to the world’s resources and wealth is the peaceful progression of fascism.

McClatchy’s request for a copy of this secret (and redacted) memo from the Obama regime has yet to be honored.

I am not sure why the McClatchy news agency believed the Obama regime would be less secretive or, as the report suggests, anymore “open than the Bush administration,” when Obama-the-presidential-candidate specifically referred to his desire to emulate proceeding leaders of Empire and further the peace – in American fashion – and even better!

And there is the peaceful progression of the Patriot Act.

From The Nation, John Nichols writes: “the Obama White House and Congressional leaders are rushing to extend… the Patriot Act’s authorities, due to expire at the end of the month.” While the GOP proposes an extension only until the end of 2011, the Obama regime envisions Patriot authorities conducting, as Nichols notes, “‘roving surveillance’ of communications,” collecting and examining “business records,” and targeting “individuals who are not tied to terrorist groups for surveillance” – at least until December 2013. (Would that be long enough to cover anticipated responses to Obama’s 2012 budget proposal?).

Not a terrorist – but a protester, maybe?

Here is where you are Egyptian, Tunisian, or Algerian – any so-called “Third World” citizen. Have a look at Obama’s 2012 budget proposal. More cuts to programs and services for the poor, workers or otherwise, while the Pentagon’s budget receives a “record” $553 billion, “a boost of $22 billion above the level enacted for 2010” (Reuters, February 14, 2011). Of the $671 billion the defense department will receive, $118 billion is designated for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, General Electric and the other corporations for which wars are the best business on the planet are delighted with the politicians in Washington.

And for the American (so-called “First-World”) people – Cuts! Cuts! Cuts! The wealthiest Americans received tax cuts and the working poor, the elderly, the graduate student, and even the community-based organizations, cuts or the elimination of badly needed services. Over 200 programs will be cut!

But not for the prison industrial complex! Spending for prisons will receive a raise from the government from $6.2 billion to $6.8 billion dollars! With 2.3 million in prisons – is the U.S. Empire anticipating housing more American citizens in prison cells?

It does not matter what ordinary people want and need to survive – and that is not non-violent!

The unemployment rate is at 9.3 percent here in the U.S., but the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, comfortable in his position, anticipates relief – way somewhere in eternity! What the hell! Bernanke is not losing sleep over it.

“The poor, who are suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from,” Bob Herbert writes.

This is more of the same waging of violence against the people! Only now, we are witnessing a more intensified war, with more rapid “wielding guns, knives, Molotov cocktails” from the ruling corporate powers striking the people since the man sitting at the desk in the Oval Office looks – colored, and as such, he is all-too willing to genuflect before his constituents and Masters – “the very rich.”

Bush could only wish to be so assertive!

And the capitalists on Wall Street, at the Pentagon, at the White House, in Congress, and state and local law enforcement agencies are not thinking about that “moral force of non-violence.” These folks know it is only a matter of time before the American people gather up their courage and surround the Bastille.