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- Apr 22, 2019
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"Homeland Security" is born of the 9/11 attack, and has always had a bad look at sounding like something that risks being an agency of government oppression against our own citizens, barely accepted by people assuming it means protecting the country from foreign attackers.
Of course, what it's been has mostly been an enormous expense for little apparent benefit, a prime target for 'reducing wasteful spending', but it is getting around to becoming that threat of oppressing the country.
The character of the head of the agency, and the trump admin, is clearly aligned with that authoritarianism and not democracy. While this is a national crisis, this thread it about their being politically incompetent enough that they are admitting it.
The Secretary, Noem, having committed the first and historic action of many they're wanting to do of inventing a crisis for which they claim justification for nationalizing the National Guard over the Governor's objection for the first time since 1965, and inserting US Marines against American citizens since longer than that, made the following statement:
"We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this Governor and that this Mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city."
Think about that.
That is the head of the government's massive "homeland security" system, and the president approving, using the propaganda word "liberating" to describe their using armed forces - a nationalized National Guard seizing it illegally from the Governor, and Marines in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and American tradition, to seize control - saying they "are not leaving" - from the elected leadership they politically are opposed to, overturning citizens' right to vote.
They have taken that action simply by saying words - calling the elected leaders a couple names - that it gives them the right to overturn democracy with force. It's like the difference between Chuck Schumer saying trump is corrupt, and him sending armed forces to take over the White House and government from trump because he says trump is corrupt.
A natural response is to want to minimize the issue - they haven't totally installed authoritarianism, the Governor and Mayor are both still in office (while the administration including the president say they want to arrest them and worse) - but this is the "boiling frog" metaphor, where this is a 'trial run'. See her statement and recognize it as not something small. Rather, it's unique in our country's history, and a national crisis for our democracy.
Of course, what it's been has mostly been an enormous expense for little apparent benefit, a prime target for 'reducing wasteful spending', but it is getting around to becoming that threat of oppressing the country.
The character of the head of the agency, and the trump admin, is clearly aligned with that authoritarianism and not democracy. While this is a national crisis, this thread it about their being politically incompetent enough that they are admitting it.
The Secretary, Noem, having committed the first and historic action of many they're wanting to do of inventing a crisis for which they claim justification for nationalizing the National Guard over the Governor's objection for the first time since 1965, and inserting US Marines against American citizens since longer than that, made the following statement:
"We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this Governor and that this Mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city."
Think about that.
That is the head of the government's massive "homeland security" system, and the president approving, using the propaganda word "liberating" to describe their using armed forces - a nationalized National Guard seizing it illegally from the Governor, and Marines in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and American tradition, to seize control - saying they "are not leaving" - from the elected leadership they politically are opposed to, overturning citizens' right to vote.
They have taken that action simply by saying words - calling the elected leaders a couple names - that it gives them the right to overturn democracy with force. It's like the difference between Chuck Schumer saying trump is corrupt, and him sending armed forces to take over the White House and government from trump because he says trump is corrupt.
A natural response is to want to minimize the issue - they haven't totally installed authoritarianism, the Governor and Mayor are both still in office (while the administration including the president say they want to arrest them and worse) - but this is the "boiling frog" metaphor, where this is a 'trial run'. See her statement and recognize it as not something small. Rather, it's unique in our country's history, and a national crisis for our democracy.
