Georgia, lawlessness, police state actions, DHS, and a flower

Red and Orange

Sorry for no public posts lately; I've been really busy with music stuff, and some end-of-the-summer work and house routine. (Furnace checkups, house exteriour cleaning, coating wood with sealant for the winter, things like that.)

I've been sitting on a variety of things waiting for time to post about them, and I still don't have time, really, but it's raining, and I'm sitting down calmly drinking tea, so here they are anyway.

The lamentably-mostly-retired blogger Billmon resurfaces on DailyKOS with a good article on the Georgian crisis, and how it ties in with the eternal-war paradigm of the neoconservative movement's followers. Dr. Roubini at RGE Monitor has commentary on the economic causes of "The Decline of the American Empire," as well. ETA: Andrew Sullivan has commentary on the McCain vision of the US vs. Almost The Entire World.

It doesn't help, of course, that the US "duped" its closest allies regarding assurances of torture and extraordinary rendition, so badly that some of them are calling it out. The message is again very clear: the US cannot be trusted.

In lawless state news, there are three articles on Atty. General Mukasey refusing to investigate or enforce the law regarding the flagrant and deliberate politisation of the Justice Department for the purposes of both political agenda and old-fashioned political spoils. One: Refusal to persue. Two: "Not every... violation of the law is a crime". Three: the political deal - don't investigate, don't prosecute - that got him the position. This is the mockery of law one should have already have come to expect, and which one should continue to expect in a lawless government.

In domestic police state news, check out this footage from Denver. This is what happens if you attempt to protest outside the chain-linked-off and isolated "Free speech zone," a construction I loathe both in its linguistic and physical forms. Also, don't try to interview people going to thank-you galas by the telecommunications industry for the Congressional Democrats who gave them retroactive immunity for massive and blatant illegal domestic spying - you'll be chased away by the police, acting as enforcers for the industry. (There's video attached to the post.) This is the democracy the Democratic Party has for you. I can't wait for the Republican version next month!

Oh, and this went around already, but if you missed it: your laptop can be seized indefinitely by the Department of Homeland Security. So don't cross the border with a laptop - at least, not where DHS will be searching.

ETA: Meanwhile, here's the outrage in political medialand; the idea that a liberal might get a cable TV show, and how outrageous it is that a Congress might oppose a President in their rhetoric.

More on this morning's posts, and police actions against reporters

In addition to this police action breaking up peaceful protest, and this coverage of journalists being forced away from covering an AT&T party for the Democratic Senators most involved in the passage of retractive immunity for clear and direct violations of domestic spying law, we now have ABC reporters being arrested for taking pictures of Senators and their donors, and being threatened with violence by police. The story has a link to video, which features an officer repeatedly shoving the ABC reporter into the street, then accusing him with blocking traffic for being in the street; later, you can see him being throttled by another officer as he's arrested and hauled off to jail. Thanks to cow for the pointer.

A follow-up to the followup

What makes this material interesting is not routine violence against protestors - that always happens, though the grab-arrests while they're actually talking to reporters to shut them up is a little atypical; nor is it the attempted secret plans for warehousing of protest detainees. What's more interesting is the direct action against media and representatives thereof itself, and, in particular, direct action against large corporate media agents such as reporters for ABC. That's interesting.

eta: Ah, the "liberal media." (And since people are missing it: this is a link to worksafe video showing Tom Brokaw saying that the Democrats can't attack John McCain because he was a POW, which is to say, spouting a GOP propaganda line as cold hard fact.)