1984: Thread

[grarpamp]

https://www.sott.net/article/447484-The-New-Domestic-War-on-Terror-is-Coming
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-new-domestic-war-on-terror-is

"
The New Domestic War on Terror is Coming
No speculation is needed. Those who wield power are demanding it. The
only question is how much opposition they will encounter.
	
Glenn Greenwald
Jan 19 2021

National Guard Troops walk down the stairs towards the Capitol
Visitors Center on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Kent
Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police
powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting “terrorism” that are
carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror
that began nearly twenty years ago. This trend shows no sign of
receding as we move farther from the January 6 Capitol riot. The
opposite is true: it is intensifying.

We have witnessed an orgy of censorship from Silicon Valley monopolies
with calls for far more aggressive speech policing, a visibly
militarized Washington, D.C. featuring a non-ironically named “Green
Zone,” vows from the incoming president and his key allies for a new
anti-domestic terrorism bill, and frequent accusations of “sedition,”
“treason,” and “terrorism” against members of Congress and citizens.
This is all driven by a radical expansion of the meaning of
“incitement to violence.” It is accompanied by viral-on-social-media
pleas that one work with the FBI to turn in one’s fellow citizens (See
Something, Say Something!) and demands for a new system of domestic
surveillance.

Underlying all of this are immediate insinuations that anyone
questioning any of this must, by virtue of these doubts, harbor
sympathy for the Terrorists and their neo-Nazi, white supremacist
ideology. Liberals have spent so many years now in a tight alliance
with neocons and the CIA that they are making the 2002 version of John
Ashcroft look like the President of the (old-school) ACLU.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security website, touting a
trademarked phrase licensed to it in 2010 by the City of New York,
urging citizens to report “suspicious activity” to the FBI and other
security state agencies

The more honest proponents of this new domestic War on Terror are
explicitly admitting that they want to model it on the first one. A
New York Times reporter noted on Monday that a “former intelligence
official on PBS NewsHour” said “that the US should think about a ‘9/11
Commission’ for domestic extremism and consider applying some of the
lessons from the fight against Al Qaeda here at home.” More amazingly,
Gen. Stanley McChrystal — for years head of Joint Special Operations
Command in Iraq and the commander of the war in Afghanistan —
explicitly compared that war to this new one, speaking to Yahoo News:

    I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq,
where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects
followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a
better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified
their violence. This is now happening in America….I think we’re much
further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper
problem as a country, than most Americans realize.”

Anyone who, despite all this, still harbors lingering doubts that the
Capitol riot is and will be the neoliberal 9/11, and that a new War on
Terror is being implemented in its name, need only watch the two short
video clips below, which will clear their doubts for good. It is like
being catapulted by an unholy time machine back to Paul Wolfowitz’s
2002 messaging lab.

The first video, flagged by Tom Elliott, is from Monday morning’s
Morning Joe program on MSNBC (the show that arguably did more to help
Donald Trump become the GOP nominee than any other). It features
Jeremy Bash — one of the seemingly countless employees of TV news
networks who previously worked in Obama’s CIA and Pentagon — demanding
that, in response to the Capitol riot, “we reset our entire
intelligence approach,” including “look[ing] at greater surveillance
of them,” adding: “the FBI is going to have to run confidential
sources.” See if you detect any differences between what CIA
operatives and neocons were saying in 2002 when demanding the Patriot
Act and greater FBI and NSA surveillance and what this
CIA-official-turned-NBC-News-analyst is saying here:

The second video features the amazing declaration from former Facebook
security official Alex Stamos, talking to the very concerned CNN host
Brian Stelter, about the need for social media companies to use the
same tactics against U.S. citizens that they used to remove ISIS from
the internet — “in collaboration with law enforcement” — and that
those tactics should be directly aimed at what he calls extremist
“conservative influencers.”

“Press freedoms are being abused by these actors,” the former Facebook
executive proclaimed. Stamos noted how generous he and his comrades
have been up until now: “We have given a lot of leeway — both in the
traditional media and in social media — to people with a very broad
range of views.” But no more. Now is the time to “get us all back in
the same consensual reality.”

In a moment of unintended candor, Stamos noted the real problem:
“there are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience
than people on daytime CNN” — and it’s time for CNN and other
mainstream outlets to seize the monopoly on information dissemination
to which they are divinely entitled by taking away the platforms of
those whom people actually want to watch and listen to:

(If still not convinced, and if you can endure it, you can also watch
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski literally screaming that
one needed remedy to the Capitol riot is that the Biden administration
must “shutdown” Facebook. Shutdown Facebook).

Calls for a War on Terror sequel — a domestic version complete with
surveillance and censorship — are not confined to ratings-deprived
cable hosts and ghouls from the security state. The Wall Street
Journal reports that “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority
of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to
create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically
inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.”

Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) — not just one of the most
dishonest members of Congress but also one of the most militaristic
and authoritarian — has had a bill proposed since 2019 to simply amend
the existing foreign anti-terrorism bill to allow the U.S. Government
to invoke exactly the same powers at home against “domestic
terrorists.”

Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already
imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as
the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should
be criminalized by new “domestic terrorism” laws that are not already
deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because — just as
was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws — their real aim
is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech,
association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.
US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) flanked by Rep. Adam
Schiff (D-CA) (R) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), speaks at a press
conference on Capitol Hill (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty
Images)

The answer to this question — what needs to be criminalized that is
not already a crime? — scarcely seems to matter. Media and political
elites have placed as many Americans as they can — and it is a lot —
into full-blown fear and panic mode, and when that happens, people are
willing to acquiesce to anything claimed necessary to stop that
threat, as the first War on Terror, still going strong twenty years
later, decisively proved.

An entire book could — and probably should — be written on why all of
this is so concerning. For the moment, two points are vital to
emphasize.

First, much of the alarmism and fear-mongering is being driven by a
deliberate distortion of what it means for speech to “incite
violence.” The bastardizing of this phrase was the basis for President
Trump’s rushed impeachment last week. It is also what is driving calls
for dozens of members of Congress to be expelled and even prosecuted
on “sedition” charges for having objected to the Electoral College
certification, and is also at the heart of the spate of censorship
actions already undertaken and further repressive measures being
urged.

This phrase — “inciting violence” — was also what drove many of the
worst War on Terror abuses. I spent years reporting on how numerous
young American Muslims were prosecuted under new, draconian
anti-terrorism laws for uploading anti-U.S.-foreign-policy YouTube
videos or giving rousing anti-American speeches deemed to “incite
violence” and thus provide “material support” to terrorist groups —
the exact theory which Rep. Schiff is seeking to import into the new
domestic War on Terror.

It is vital to ask what it means for speech to constitute “incitement
to violence” to the point that it can be banned or criminalized. The
expression of any political viewpoint, especially one passionately
expressed, has the potential to “incite” someone else to get so riled
up that they engage in violence.

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If you rail against the threats to free speech posed by Silicon Valley
monopolies, someone hearing you may get so filled with rage that they
decide to bomb an Amazon warehouse or a Facebook office. If you write
a blistering screed accusing pro-life activists of endangering the
lives of women by forcing them back into unsafe back-alley abortions,
or if you argue that abortion is murder, you may very well inspire
someone to engage in violence against a pro-life group or an abortion
clinic. If you start a protest movement to object to the injustice of
Wall Street bailouts — whether you call it “Occupy Wall Street” or the
Tea Party — you may cause someone to go hunt down Goldman Sachs or
Citibank executives who they believe are destroying the economic
future of millions of people.

If you claim that George W. Bush stole the 2000 and/or 2004 elections
— as many Democrats, including members of Congress, did — you may
inspire civic unrest or violence against Bush and his supporters. The
same is true if you claim the 2016 or 2020 elections were fraudulent
or illegitimate. If you rage against the racist brutality of the
police, people may go burn down buildings in protest — or murder
randomly selected police officers whom they have become convinced are
agents of a racist genocidal state.

The Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer and hard-core Democratic
partisan, James Hodgkinson, who went to a softball field in June, 2017
to murder Republican Congress members — and almost succeeded in
fatally shooting Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) — had spent months
listening to radical Sanders supporters and participating in Facebook
groups with names like “Terminate the Republican Party” and “Trump is
a Traitor.”

Hodgkinson had heard over and over that Republicans were not merely
misguided but were “traitors” and grave threats to the Republic. As
CNN reported, “his favorite television shows were listed as ‘Real Time
with Bill Maher;’ ‘The Rachel Maddow Show;’ ‘Democracy Now!’ and other
left-leaning programs.” All of the political rhetoric to which he was
exposed — from the pro-Sanders Facebook groups, MSNBC and left-leaning
shows — undoubtedly played a major role in triggering his violent
assault and decision to murder pro-Trump Republican Congress members.

Despite the potential of all of those views to motivate others to
commit violence in their name — potential that has sometimes been
realized — none of the people expressing those views, no matter how
passionately, can be validly characterized as “inciting violence”
either legally or ethically. That is because all of that speech is
protected, legitimate speech. None of it advocates violence. None of
it urges others to commit violence in its name. The fact that it may
“inspire” or “motivate” some mentally unwell person or a genuine
fanatic to commit violence does not make the person espousing those
views and engaging in that non-violent speech guilty of “inciting
violence” in any meaningful sense.

To illustrate this point, I have often cited the crucial and
brilliantly reasoned Supreme Court free speech ruling in Claiborne v.
NAACP. In the 1960s and 1970s, the State of Mississippi tried to hold
local NAACP leaders liable on the ground that their fiery speeches
urging a boycott of white-owned stores “incited” their followers to
burn down stores and violently attack patrons who did not honor the
protest. The state’s argument was that the NAACP leaders knew that
they were metaphorically pouring gasoline on a fire with their
inflammatory rhetoric to rile up and angry crowds.

But the Supreme Court rejected that argument, explaining that free
speech will die if people are held responsible not for their own
violent acts but for those committed by others who heard them speak
and were motivated to commit crimes in the name of that cause
(emphasis added):

    Civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual
belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence.
. . .

    [A]ny such theory fails for the simple reason that there is no
evidence — apart from the speeches themselves -- that [the NAACP
leader sued by the State] authorized, ratified, or directly threatened
acts of violence. . . . . To impose liability without a finding that
the NAACP authorized — either actually or apparently — or ratified
unlawful conduct would impermissibly burden the rights of political
association that are protected by the First Amendment. . . .

    While the State legitimately may impose damages for the
consequences of violent conduct, it may not award compensation for the
consequences of nonviolent, protected activity. Only those losses
proximately caused by unlawful conduct may be recovered.

    The First Amendment similarly restricts the ability of the State
to impose liability on an individual solely because of his association
with another.

The Claiborne court relied upon the iconic First Amendment ruling in
Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a KKK
leader who had publicly advocated the possibility of violence against
politicians. Even explicitly advocating the need or justifiability of
violence for political ends is protected speech, ruled the court. They
carved out a very narrow exception: “where such advocacy is directed
to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to
incite or produce such action” — meaning someone is explicitly urging
an already assembled mob to specific violence with the expectation
that they will do so more or less immediately (such as standing
outside someone’s home and telling the gathered mob: it’s time to burn
it down).

It goes without saying that First Amendment jurisprudence on
“incitement” governs what a state can do when punishing or restricting
speech, not what a Congress can do in impeaching a president or
expelling its own members, and certainly not social media companies
seeking to ban people from their platforms.

But that does not make these principles of how to understand
“incitement to violence” irrelevant when applied to other contexts.
Indeed, the central reasoning of these cases is vital to preserve
everywhere: that if speech is classified as “incitement to violence”
despite not explicitly advocating violence, it will sweep up any
political speech which those wielding this term wish it to encompass.
No political speech will be safe from this term when interpreted and
applied so broadly and carelessly.

And that is directly relevant to the second point. Continuing to
process Washington debates of this sort primarily through the prism of
“Democrat v. Republican” or even “left v. right” is a sure ticket to
the destruction of core rights. There are times when powers of
repression and censorship are aimed more at the left and times when
they are aimed more at the right, but it is neither inherently a
left-wing nor a right-wing tactic. It is a ruling class tactic, and it
will be deployed against anyone perceived to be a dissident to ruling
class interests and orthodoxies no matter where on the ideological
spectrum they reside.

The last several months of politician-and-journalist-demanded Silicon
Valley censorship has targeted the right, but prior to that and
simultaneously it has often targeted those perceived as on the left.
The government has frequently declared right-wing domestic groups
“terrorists,” while in the 1960s and 1970s it was left-wing groups
devoted to anti-war activism which bore that designation. In 2011,
British police designated the London version of Occupy Wall Street a
“terrorist” group. In the 1980s, the African National Congress was so
designated. “Terrorism” is an amorphous term that was created, and
will always be used, to outlaw formidable dissent no matter its source
or ideology.

If you identify as a conservative and continue to believe that your
prime enemies are ordinary leftists, or you identify as a leftist and
believe your prime enemies are Republican citizens, you will fall
perfectly into the trap set for you. Namely, you will ignore your real
enemies, the ones who actually wield power at your expense: ruling
class elites, who really do not care about “right v. left” and most
definitely do not care about “Republican v. Democrat” — as evidenced
by the fact that they fund both parties — but instead care only about
one thing: stability, or preservation of the prevailing neoliberal
order.

Unlike so many ordinary citizens addicted to trivial partisan warfare,
these ruling class elites know who their real enemies are: anyone who
steps outside the limits and rules of the game they have crafted and
who seeks to disrupt the system that preserves their prerogatives and
status. The one who put this best was probably Barack Obama when he
was president, when he observed — correctly — that the perceived
warfare between establishment Democratic and Republican elites was
mostly theater, and on the question of what they actually believe,
they’re both “fighting inside the 40 yard line” together:

A standard Goldman Sachs banker or Silicon Valley executive has far
more in common, and is far more comfortable, with Chuck Schumer, Nancy
Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan than they do with
the ordinary American citizen. Except when it means a mildly
disruptive presence — like Trump — they barely care whether Democrats
or Republicans rule various organs of government, or whether people
who call themselves “liberals” or “conservatives” ascend to power.
Some left-wing members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) have said they oppose a new
domestic terrorism law, but Democrats will have no trouble forming a
majority by partnering with their neocon GOP allies like Liz Cheney to
get it done, as they did earlier this year to stop the withdrawal of
troops from Afghanistan and Germany.

Neoliberalism and imperialism do not care about the pseudo-fights
between the two parties or the cable TV bickering of the day. They do
not like the far left or the far right. They do not like extremism of
any kind. They do not support Communism and they do not support
neo-Nazism or some fascist revolution. They care only about one thing:
disempowering and crushing anyone who dissents from and threatens
their hegemony. They care about stopping dissidents. All the weapons
they build and institutions they assemble — the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA,
the NSA, oligarchical power — exist for that sole and exclusive
purpose, to fortify their power by rewarding those who accede to their
pieties and crushing those who do not.

No matter your views on the threat posed by international Islamic
radicalism, huge excesses were committed in the name of stopping it —
or, more accurately, the fears it generated were exploited to empower
and entrench existing financial and political elites. The
Authorization to Use Military Force — responsible for
twenty-years-and-counting of war — was approved by the House three
days after the 9/11 attack with just one dissenting vote. The Patriot
Act — which radically expanded government surveillance powers — was
enacted a mere six weeks after that attack, based on the promise that
it would be temporary and “sunset” in four years. Like the wars
spawned by 9/11, it is still in full force, virtually never debated
any longer and predictably expanded far beyond how it was originally
depicted.

The first War on Terror ended up being wielded primarily on foreign
soil but it has increasingly been imported onto domestic soil against
Americans. This New War on Terror — one that is domestic in name from
the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting “extremists”
and “domestic terrorists” among American citizens on U.S. soil —
presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when
governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm
themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion,
activism and protests.

That a new War on Terror is coming is not a question of speculation
and it is not in doubt. Those who now wield power are saying it
explicitly. The only thing that is in doubt is how much opposition
they will encounter from those who value basic civic rights more than
the fears of one another being deliberately cultivated within us.
"