Army units to be deployed against Americans in the event of “civil disturbance”

Originally from September 2008, I’m re-posting this here and now because of the recent lockdown in Boston in which National Guard members were mobilized to act as law enforcement. Also, this.

Whether Northern Command has actually deployed these units for this purpose I do not know. I just find it rather interesting that the Army Times reported on this, Democracy Now reported on this, but the MSM? Not a peep. Anyone who has further information on this, please feel free to comment.

—————————-

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations

Beginning in October [2008], the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

The Army Times reported this here on September 8, 2008. Text quote extensively below due to retroactive paywall.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

…

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

Anyone else remember posse comitatus?

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

On marriage, SCOTUS, and the Human Rights Campaign

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for and against California’s Proposition 8 today. Tomorrow they will hear oral arguments regarding DOMA.

I’m of two minds about this. No, strike that. I’m of one mind; there is no “but” here. There is, however, an “and.”

From my Twitter earlier today, where I seem to do a lot of my best thinking lately:

“Not sure how I feel abt Prop 8 and DOMA cases, except nervous. I loathe marriage, but feel ppl should be able to do it if they wish to.”

“At the same time, the LG community has focused on marriage and DADT to the detriment of transfolk, bis, queers in prison, queers of color.”

“Plus, if we had good immigration policies, healthcare for all, employment protections, marriage wouldn’t be a necessity for basic needs.”

“The law student – and yes, queer person – in me wants to see Prop 8 and DOMA fall, because discrimination is never okay.”

“At the same time, I’m angry that so much energy has been focused on marriage while basic life needs for more hard-up queer ppl are ignored.”

“I hope we win these cases. I DO. And then I want our energies to focus on those who really need it, not just comfortable white cis gays.”

I’m not the only one who feels that way. There’s a great essay out today, Why I support same-sex marriage as a civil right but not as a strategy to achieve structural change. It addresses how marriage, while it should be equally available to those who wish to partake, is not the end-all, be-all of queer equality, and it sure as shit doesn’t address the institutional problems that non-white, trans and genderqueer, impoverished, imprisoned, and homeless queer people face. I mean, shit, if you won’t see the couple on a glossy Human Rights Campaign brochure, they don’t exist in the queer community.

I want SCOTUS to strike down the bans on marriage, both at the state level and federal level.

AND

I want our queer organizations to focus on queer youth who are being bullied to death and thrown out of their homes. I want them to focus on institutional racism and the War on Drugs that leads to so many young queers of color to be incarcerated. I want them to address rape and abuse of queer inmates in the prison system. I want them to start talking again and taking action on HIV prevention and treatment while we look for a cure. I want them to address the police brutality against and the oppression and outright criminalization of transgender and genderqueer people. I want them to put as much energy into lobbying for a trans-inclusive ENDA as they did for DADT repeal so queer people can be hired and retained in their jobs. I want them to call for the fucking banks and multinational corporations to pay their goddam taxes so we might actually start on the road to economic recovery so queer people can actually find a job.

In short, I want organizations like HRC to give a fuck about someone other than comfortable, white, cisgender gays and lesbians who fit into an assimilationist’s wet dream.

And I want those people to be able to get married, too.

Shock Doctrine for the Police State

Barbara Boxer want the National Guard in schools, along with more surveillance cameras and kids wearing RFID badges.

NO.

It’s like fucking Shock Doctrine for the police state. In the post-9/11 world, the government got unprecedented spy powers. By the way, for those who haven’t heard, the Senate ok’d spy agencies and the FBI and DHS reading your email without a warrant. The 4th Amendment was nice while we had it, I guess. Every single time there’s some major tragedy, the government uses it as an excuse to beef up the police/surveillance state. And now Barbara Boxer, one of those “liberal democrats,” thinks we should be putting National Guardsmen in schools.

We all know how well that turned out last time.

Wayne LaPierre proposes some creepy as fuck bullshit

NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre called for a national database of people with mental illness.

This is really some creepy as fuck bullshit.

As though the domestic surveillance state isn’t already big and intrusive enough, now we have a gun nut calling for more state surveillance, this time specifically of people who live with a disability.

As pointed out by Miriam, this is a very bad idea.

For those who don’t want to click through to Miriam’s wonderful post, here are the basic reasons why (I added a few embellishments):

1. Mental health professionals are already required to break confidentiality and report when patients pose a clear threat to themselves or others. What’s the point of having a database with safeguards already in place?

2. It violates HIPAA like WOAH. Although, given that law enforcement can access your medical records without a warrant, and pretty much for any reason or none at all, this seems kind of like a moot point.

3. What diagnoses are included? What is “dangerous”? As has been pointed out numerous times, people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence than the perpetrators of it.

4. Just what the hell would the government DO with this list?

5. Most people with mental illnesses do not get treatment due to cost, availability, and stigma. A database is no good without data to report.

6. Knowing you’re going to be put into a government database would seriously discourage people from seeking needed treatment.

99% of mass murders in the United States are committed by angry men, mostly white, seeking to bolster their masculinity by shooting up crowds of people. George Sodini immediately springs to mind. Yet I don’t see any calls from Wayne LaPierre for his customer base to be profiled by the government.

Why street harassment is rape culture

I just want to walk down the damn street without getting leered at and catcalled like I was yesterday. That shouldn’t be such an impossible thing to ask for. But it is.

Here’s Why Girls Don’t Get Flattered When Guys Comment On Their Bodies

Girls start getting unwanted attention at a young age, and it happens for the rest of our lives. Men yell things at us on the street and invade our personal space on the bus or trolley when there are plenty of other seats. They try to look up our skirts when we sit down. They don’t listen when we try to rebuff them. We see reports of yet another girl raped on her way home last weekend, another woman whose body was found in a ditch. We’re told not to go out alone at night, to take someone with us even if we’re only driving to the store or the library or the gas station. We’re told to carry our keys like weapons, to park in the lot instead of the structure because it’s better to get rained on than raped and murdered. We’re told not to walk alone even during the day. We’re told close friends might rape us if they’ve had a bit to drink because they’re men, that it’s wrong, but it happens sometimes and we should be on our guard…Now imagine that one of the people you’ve been taught to regard as a threat to your body says he wants your body. If he really does, you’ll have a hard time stopping him.

Rape culture is, among other things, the continuum of largely male behavior that ranges from jokes and stares to catcalls to sexual harassment in school or the workplace to sexual assault to violent rape, and justification and condoning of all that behavior. All of it is meant to make women’s bodies and lives public property, the property of the men around them. All of it is meant as a power grab.

When you’re a stranger leering at or commenting on my body on the street, I know that’s all I am to you – a body. A set of tits. A series of holes to stick your dick in. I know you’re not thinking about the amazing fact that I can, for example, calibrate a cruise missile’s targeting radar system, or dissect a Supreme Court ruling on physician-assisted death. You’re thinking about how you’d like to stick your dick in me. I may as well be a sentient blow-up doll.

And there are a lot of men out there, roughly 9-15%, depending on the study, who won’t stop sticking their dick in me when I say “no.” And I don’t know if you’re one of those. If you are one of those men, and I can’t overpower or get away from you, my life will never be the same again.

That fear, for me, starts with something as seemingly innocuous as a “Hey, pretty baby!” as I walk by, like yesterday. Because I don’t know if you’ll follow me, want to talk, like yesterday. Or if you’ll get mad when I rebuff you, like yesterday. Or if you’ll follow me down the street yelling that I’m a stupid whore, a bitch, can’t I just take a compliment, I’m frigid-you-just-need-a-good-hard-fuck, like yesterday. I don’t know if your yelling will escalate into physical violence. If it had yesterday, I’m not sure if I could have gotten away if I’d tried to run, or if I’d been hurt worse if I’d fought back.

That fear is pretty well-founded, and well-grounded.

Know why I didn’t get catcalled or leered at today? Know why I didn’t commute in fear today? Because I didn’t leave my damn house.

Don’t comment on my body. Just don’t.

On Being Poor Today

Back in 2005 John Scalzi wrote a post, Being Poor. Several things jumped out at me.

Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.

Being poor is waiting for people at the Veterans’ Administration Regional Processing Center in Buffalo to actually look at my appeal and hoping they decide that no, I don’t actually owe them $5,300 and yes, I will get my GI Bill living stipend while I’m in school trying to better myself.

Being poor is talking to the people in the student accounts office and finding out that the state doesn’t disburse student aid until the semester is almost over because, “They want you to hold up your end of the bargain.” So apparently if you go to a state school it’s assumed you’re scum and are going to drop out.

Being poor today is realizing that I won’t be able to pay the rent next week because relying on those people to do their jobs, the only choice I had, was a mistake.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor today was figuring out what was on sale at the grocery store to match the last of my EBT money and still eat for the next week. It was buying as many sale items as possible to cook for two to four people per meal, calculating how much rice and lentils I could feasibly add to make the meals stretch and still be recognizable as a meal.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.

Being poor today is wanting to show this to the partner who fired me after I asked for a disability accommodation and shove the piece of paper up his ass.

Being poor today is breaking down crying because I haven’t been financially stable since I first got sick in the end of 2009. It’s having grown up poor, and crying at being back in the place I swore I’d never be again. It’s being disabled, and having that disability so sharply define my economic status.

Being poor today is being sick and tired of being poor, sick, and tired.

Stop this ride. I want off.

http://www.barackobama.com/news/entry/for-all

There’s a new way to show that you’re voting for someone who represents us all. Choose one of your reasons for voting and write it on your hand, then pledge to vote. You can share a photo on Twitter and Instagram with #ForAll. Check out some of the photos—you might even recognize a few of the faces.

WAT.

This is creepy as all fuck. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is some fucking Nuremberg shit right here. A pledge of loyalty to your party leader? WHAT??

We’re living in a time of unprecedented Executive power, thanks to Congress abdicating their post-9/11 responsibility and handing Chimpy McFuckface the keys to the kingdom. Obama sure as hell hasn’t given those back, and insists on grabbing for MORE Executive powers, such as the power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge or trial and kill Americans via extra-judicial drone strikes.

And it’s not just the Executive power grabs. Dissent is being suppressed in this country at such a level that United Nations envoys on Human Rights have formally requested protection for protesters. As shown in FOIA releases Occupy has been surveilled by counterterrorism units and the camps ultimately shut down in a nationwide coordinated effort by DHS. The militarization of police and branding of protesters as terrorists have effectively killed dissent in this country.

And now we have the Executive calling for his supporters to put their hand over their hearts and pledge their loyalty in a show of support.

This shit isn’t funny. It’s terrifying. I keep looking around expecting to be in 1930s Berlin.