July 18, 2008 archive

I’ve only caught some news snippets lately but I noticed what might be a pattern emerging.

The big immigrant round-up in Postville, IA was an exercise in mass processing of a large round-up of illegal immigrants. They were taken to a cattle auction fairground and batch processed through a rigged system that put them each in prison for five months prior to their deportation. There are some good diaries around on the subject. I’ll add some links if I have time, otherwise a google should do it.

My discipline is computer science and I have had a lot of management experience in a large organization (IBM after they bought Lotus out; I was and am a Loti, ex). This whole operation struck me as a trial run for a process that would be repeated and refined over time. The victims in this case were the evil brown people – the illegal immigrants. They’ve been getting demonized for years now so the collective working class sympathy for them is pretty low. After all, they’re taking American jobs. That those are jobs that Uhmericans won’t do doesn’t matter. They are part of the economic problem and therefore – no widespread outrage.

The second mass operation was the combined federal, state and local mass round-up of sex offenders. No big deal, they deserved it right? No one wants to defend that crowd. That makes it very easy to do a trial run on them, too. The feds made this happen by doling out huge sums of cash for lots of OT pay for state and local authorities. Everyone likes more cash in their pockets. One of the big benefits was building longer term relationships among the three governmental law enforcement levels. This was even touted in some of the press coverage. What a wonderful thing to see such cooperation on a multi-state, multi-locality effort.

So first the illegal immigrants and then the sex offenders. Nice, safely demonizable practice groups is what I see. The first run at Postville hit a single location and gave valuable feedback on how to process human beings through a carefully jury-rigged (npi) legal chute. (Check out the huge busing capacity in the first link up top.) It was just like cattle to the slaughter except the outcome was temporary imprisonment at just below the maximum sentence. Of course the immigrants will now be available as free prison labor for those five months.

The second run is more insidious. I’ve seen small rumblings here and there about the feds identifying state and local law enforcement types who would be willing to go so far as to shoot at Uhmerican citizens. I’ll have to research that a bit more. Maybe someone can link to any relevant bits in the comments. The pervert posse set up what can be a continuing and growing bond, well lubricated by federal funds, to develop a vertical enforcement structure that could, if it fell into evil hands, be used to round up any stray thinkers. Not that anyone would actually be so evil as to conceive of such a thing.

Separately, these two events seem unrelated. Add a huge dash of illegal, warrantless wiretapping and let it simmer for a bit. Smells like soup to me. What would be the next ingredient? Across Russia and Europe it would always be the Jews, gypsys and gays. I suppose Muslims could be next. I doubt they’d go after the drug gangs. They’re better armed and funded.

Oops, missed an earlier one in 2006 under Gonzo. They’ve been practicing longer than I thought. Bonus – illegal immigrant sex offenders!

OK. I give up. Here it is: Operation Falcon! Federal And Local Cops Organized Nationally. I guess I’m just slow tonight. That’s the official government web site touting its huge benefits.

I suppose the next move is outsourcing the wet work to Blackwater and Dyncorp. The last eight years will never be taught in American History classes. At least not the way they actually happened. File the American Dream under Nice-Try, No-Cigar.

I’m very pleased with what I see happening with consciousness on the planet right now, particularly in places like this blog.  I’m equally fascinated by the questioning about whether or not we will survive beyond the predicaments which surround us.

Human beings seem to be lazy laggards to a large extent.  Maybe that’s too strong; but we do seem to suffer from a form of “I’ve arrivedism”.  When we get somewhere, we tend to just want to sit down in the grass, relax, and enjoy.  In all honesty, many of us have been able to do that for a number of years now.  From time to time, however, life comes along and prods us into the next need to grow and move. We resist; we don’t want to get up, to move on.  It’s a form of that addage: “…the old swimmin’ hole in the river under the oak tree was good enuff for us…” syndrome.  Actually, that sounds pretty good to me right now.  But I digress.

We tend to resist change, to get up and move on. And so we don’t until we are absolutely forced to do so by a reality which has become too dangerous, too hostile, too uncomfortable, and too destructive to stay put any longer.

Today is a time when we must not, we cannot, stay put.  The danger is too great.  The stakes are too high.  We have created structures and ways of thinking which are no longer sustainable.  It is imperative that we move on, that we evolve new ways of thinking and being.  And surprisingly these ways will resemble some older ways as pointed out in Opol’s wonderful essay, “We are All Related,” “Mitakuye Oayasin”.

So good old life is nudging us again, saying get up, move forward, grow, evolve.

Will we make it?  Will we survive?  I don’t have the answer to that.  But I do know I must contribute whatever little bit and all I can to being able to say “Yes!”

Leap with me beyond the fold…