Saturday, October 23, 2010

Virtual fence plans to be scrapped

c/o North Carolina Observer

WASHINGTON The Obama administration is preparing to scrap Bush-era plans to gradually extend a high-tech "virtual" border fence along vast stretches of the 1,969-mile U.S.-Mexico border, ending a troubled security measure inaugurated in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush, the Houston Chronicle learned Friday.

The decision, expected to be announced shortly by the Department of Homeland Security, comes after federal authorities poured nearly $1 billion into a post-9/11, 53-mile demonstration project to evaluate whether a network of state-of-the-art remote cameras and ground sensors could help U.S. Border Patrol agents intercept undocumented immigrants, drug smugglers or potential terrorists surreptitiously crossing the border into the United States.

The Obama administration decision would end the original Bush administration plan to extend the virtual fence along most of the U.S.-Mexico border by 2017 at an estimated cost of $8 billion.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona familiar with the problems afflicting the project, signaled plans to kill any extension of the "invisible fence" with a series of internal decisions in recent weeks that shifted the year-to-year contract with the prime contractor to a month-to-month contract that is due to expire on Nov. 21. HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Thursday, October 21, 2010

3 ring circus

BTC -  Once in awhile I see a piece of art which simply says more than I can put to words. Everyone I know might doing things they don't want to do to get what they need from life in America.

For the hard pressed, the low brow, the threatened, burdened, responsible class - I looked high and low for the right black velvet painting featuring Tigers. Why? Because it tells us what it can be like to lead a rich, energetic life with next to nothing.

Circus Tigers by Michelle Mason 

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Fascist Joe Miller ices Alaska's Tea Party anti-establishment tone

PLEASE HEED THE WARNING.  DO NOT SUPPORT JOE MILLER, Senate Republican from Alaska.  The likelihood is high that he will personally expedite fascism in America.

BTC -  The Tea Party is not a uniform organism.  It is a more or less hothouse garden of small government, anti-tax grassroots cultivated through the media sprawl of Fox news.  This has been repeated over and over.  It's important to point out when small government cultures get a mutant strain which grows larger than the rest and then of course adopts poisonous or harmful characteristics.

Allow me to explain.

Alaska is known for producing and promulgating American exceptionalism.   American exceptionalism is touted by Alaska's chief political export, Sarah Palin. This is the idea that America doesn't have to adhere to basic general standards, ethics and morality in ways the rest of the world does.   Which is why some Americans condemn the facist treatment of women in fundamentalist Islamic cultures and then justify no-bid contracts to perform extranational rendition, human experimentation and torture on the US tax payer dime.

Exceptionalism is also why some of the deluded officials in our government think we are immune to facism when we adopt its actions for use on our own people.  Remember the instances when it was said, "It's not illegal when the president does it,"?    This is the current state of mind in Washington D.C.  They have lost their compass for what is and is not facisim, even when it is another American.  Activists and advocates have to hold their hand, shout in their near deaf ears and lead them against doing things which will eventually erode their own personal freedoms as Americans.  I think of it like aiding a developmentally disabled family member.  It's tough but you have to do it for everyone's sake.

This is the strong clear reasoning of Americans towards voting anti-incumbent, of which I have been a strong proponent.

That was until I saw headlines about Tea Party hopeful Joe Miller as soon as Sunday touting East Germany's example of border wall security as a great solution to our societal and immigration woes.  That has red flag all over it.  It doesn't stop there.  Miller took it upon himself to try to forcibly and illegally detain a journalist covering his campaign.

Joe Miller wants that fence. He'll probably want to see your papers too. If I had a crystal ball I would project he will volley to keep Real ID law and enforceable in the States. He is exactly what establishment Washington IS, not what America needs.

This is not the usual behavior of a campaigning man "of the people, by the people". This is the behavior of someone who will propell RNC-G20-G8 levels of martial law.  This is the behavior of a  person who will use physical force to silence free speech when it is inconveniencing them.  This is the dictionary picture of the Ugly American wrecking around innocent people and then calling for backup for doing it because he's a nationalist.  He wants a paycheck for this.  He wants more responsibility.

LISTEN:  THIS IS A BAD SIGN. PLEASE HEED THE WARNING.  DO NOT SUPPORT JOE MILLER, Senate Republican from Alaska.  The likelihood is high that he will personally expedite fascism in America.


ALSO BAD: RE-ELECTING REP. ERIC CANTOR, SO HE CAN DEFEND REAL ID