I came across a disturbing photo this morning of "our boys" in the army diligently running through a training exercise to control....Us! Never mind the venerable Posse Comitatus act passed way back 1878 that prohibited the military from any domestic law enforcement, based on the old fear of the quartering of British armies in the colonies. That was one of the many protections of our liberty that were quietly dismantled by Bush and his Republican cohorts in the 8 years when the country suffered so much damage under his administration, including 9-11, two unwinnable wars, the financial malfeasance and collapse of Wall Street and the onset of the second Great Depression to name but a few.
Lest we forget as we flip from the super bowl to Lady Gaga, to the next holiday sale, those were the halcyon days that brought us the great misnomer of our day, a piece of legislation called "The Patriot Act," which was also quietly "extended" by Change.gov and the new congress this month. Yet another blight on the constitution is H.R. 5122, the John Warner "Defense Authorization Act" for Fiscal Year 2007, signed by president Bush on October 17, 2006, that gives the president the power to employ the armed forces to restore public order in any state of the United States. Bye, bye Posse Comitatus. I guess the Founding Fathers, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton and all the rest had it wrong, and Bush and Cheney had to straighten them out, with a little help from John Warner.
The photo showed ranks of heavily armored young soldiers with what looked like kevlar padding on their shoulders and shins, and visored gray helmets. They carried clear plastic shields with the first rank forming a shield-wall and the second rank raising their shields up to form a roof. They looked like our modern version of the 300 Spartans or perhaps a cohort of Roman soldiers. Other troops wearing sweatshirts and blue jeans (to look more like you and me) and carrying brooms and sticks and bottles, were taunting and jabbing at the silent ranks of our new military crowd control force, training here in the good old USA, land of the free. Oh, they haven't shown up in Wisconsin yet to start busting open the heads of teachers and public workers who have pulled a Tahrir Square in the government buildings there the last week. But Lord knows they will show up somewhere on US soil one day...."our boys."
The US government was so quick to condemn the actions of authoritarian rulers in the Middle East, but should that sort of unrest ever visit our shores I wonder... I just wonder how far the new rubber bullet firing machine gun the army is deploying soon will serve, and whether the real bullets will start firing over here as well. Because a few battalions, or even a few brigades or divisions of "our boys" will not suffice to maintain order here in the US of A if people ever turn off their TV sets, get really hungry or angry, and take to the streets. These security forces will serve in a pinch, for small demonstrations and such. But there will come an awful moment when things get out of hand in these "uprisings" and I am from a generation who knows only too well what happens..."Four dead in Ohio..." was a song that led a generation of young Americans to protest the Viet Nam war. The lyrics "Got to get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down" cut through to our Rubber Souls like rubber bullets.
So if things ever go the way of Egypt over here "our boys" will be faced with a real thorny dilemma. You see, the government authorities who order their deployment on US soil are not the United States of America. The People they are deployed against are, in final and incontrovertible fact, the nation they have sworn to serve. We the People are the United States of America, not Congress, the Supreme Court or the Executive branch of our government--all entities created to serve the People. Our 300 Spartans had better damn well remember that as they oil their rifles in the barracks. Because should they ever forget, the hundreds of millions of Americans in this country will remind them fairly quickly. You see, "our boys," with most of the entire army deployed in Iraq for 8 years, and all firing live ammo with tanks, air support and the full weight of our military power, could not control the 23 million over there. Fat chance they will ever be able to control the 300 million over here.
