Sunday, August 27, 2006
UNDERTONES: THE NEW TERRORIST THREAT
Here’s another one for those afflicted with the delusion that pursuit of the phony “war on terror” won’t lead to everything from outright idiotic hare chasing to tangible abuse of innocent citizens…
From AP via The Seattle Times:
“Idea to remove dam triggers probe by FBI”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003228878_dam27.html
From the article:
“ST. LOUIS — Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam.
Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions…”
Bensman claims he never mentioned blowing up the dam – which is after all how one removes a no longer needed dam – but that the sponsor of the meeting, the Army Corps of Engineers, did so in their presentation…
But a reporter from the local rag of record got it wrong, and a few days later the man was leaning on Bensman. His comments were “construed to have terrorist undertones”…
You know, I bet the section charged with counterterrorism in the FBI office covering Missouri is real busy… Why every sandmonkey alive must dream of blowing up… What? Is there anything in Missouri worth blowing up?
Maybe Rush Limbaugh on a trip back to Cape Geraldo…
So these boys are pulling down 50 grand a year or better each to???
Harass citizens who advocate removing obsolete dams, it looks like... Harass citizens at the request of bureaucrats from the Corps who weren’t at the meeting to hear the advocacy but objected to a second-hand account…
This is how it starts. Think of it as an adjunct to Giuliani’s “broken window’s” idea or the slow boiling frog theory. You don’t just wake up one morning with two cops and a posting of 50 new rules on every street corner. You get used to it a little at a time, like broken windows or warming water. Pretty soon these common, petty insults to citizens – these foolish wastes of our money - become accepted… And then one day if a Jim Bensman complains and thereafter disappears for a few days only to reappear beaten and drugged, well, he shouldn’t have stuck his head up…
People stop sticking their heads up… And stop being free men but instead become slaves to petty bureaucrats and the fear and paranoia abuse creates.
It is real and it isn’t inconsequential. There is no room in a free America for cops who chase shadow “threats” parsed out of comments made under the most American of protections, the right to address the government directly in a public assembly.
Zero tolerance to terror power abuses is the only way.
From AP via The Seattle Times:
“Idea to remove dam triggers probe by FBI”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003228878_dam27.html
From the article:
“ST. LOUIS — Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam.
Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions…”
Bensman claims he never mentioned blowing up the dam – which is after all how one removes a no longer needed dam – but that the sponsor of the meeting, the Army Corps of Engineers, did so in their presentation…
But a reporter from the local rag of record got it wrong, and a few days later the man was leaning on Bensman. His comments were “construed to have terrorist undertones”…
You know, I bet the section charged with counterterrorism in the FBI office covering Missouri is real busy… Why every sandmonkey alive must dream of blowing up… What? Is there anything in Missouri worth blowing up?
Maybe Rush Limbaugh on a trip back to Cape Geraldo…
So these boys are pulling down 50 grand a year or better each to???
Harass citizens who advocate removing obsolete dams, it looks like... Harass citizens at the request of bureaucrats from the Corps who weren’t at the meeting to hear the advocacy but objected to a second-hand account…
This is how it starts. Think of it as an adjunct to Giuliani’s “broken window’s” idea or the slow boiling frog theory. You don’t just wake up one morning with two cops and a posting of 50 new rules on every street corner. You get used to it a little at a time, like broken windows or warming water. Pretty soon these common, petty insults to citizens – these foolish wastes of our money - become accepted… And then one day if a Jim Bensman complains and thereafter disappears for a few days only to reappear beaten and drugged, well, he shouldn’t have stuck his head up…
People stop sticking their heads up… And stop being free men but instead become slaves to petty bureaucrats and the fear and paranoia abuse creates.
It is real and it isn’t inconsequential. There is no room in a free America for cops who chase shadow “threats” parsed out of comments made under the most American of protections, the right to address the government directly in a public assembly.
Zero tolerance to terror power abuses is the only way.
