Tag Archives: Internment Camps

DPD commander reveals arrest threat is a regular “ploy” to disperse protest

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DENVER, COLORADO- We heard on Friday that US judge William Martinez needed more time to craft an opinion on a temporary injunction of DIA’s enforcement of their free speech permit. He commited to a decision early this week, and frankly we don’t know what to expect. From challenges he posed to attorneys at Wednesday’s hearing, the judge appears to think DIA needs some degree of “notice” about potential disruptions. He is unlikely to rule against the permit altogether because he opened the hearing already proclaiming that DIA is a “not a public forum” and thus has discretion about what expression to allow. DIA can limit subject matter, but not viewpoint, and can constrict assemblies. Judge Martinez’s starting point was based on US Supreme Court precedent set at JFK and Dulles airports, ignoring that both of those facilities are decentralized and lack DIA’s literal public square. Ironically, neither JFK or Dulles attempted to quash their Muslim Ban protests as did DIA. I’d like to mention some other details revealed at the preliminary injunction hearing.

For starters, the person in charge of approving permits has a highy subjective attitude about viewpoint. To him, pro-military messages are not oints of view at all, they’re just patriotic. They don’t require permits. Also, his department hasn’t declined to issue permits. They work with applicants to arrive at accommodations suitable to the airport. For example, the American Islamic Society was recently granted a permit, the airport requires they limit their participant numbers to FOUR.

DPD Commander Tony Lopez explained why he needs advance notice of protest actions, to be able to schedule officers without having to pay short-notice overtime. Lopez revealed that his optimal staffing numbers are a one to one ratio with activists. Small wonder he was demoted to DIA from downtown District Six. Lopez also testified that he often threatens to make arrests “as a ploy” to make a crowd disperse. And “it usually works” he said. A next step is to mobilize his officers to appear to be targeting particular activists, to increase the intimidation, without an actual intention of making arrests, or justifying them. His testimony confirmed what I described to the court, of officers often threatening to arrest us, even when they had no legal basis, and telling us we needed a permit when none was required.

From the attitude of the city attorneys and the DIA personnel, one became uneasily aware that administrators don’t even blink at sacrificing civil liberties for the interests of security. If airport surveillance can’t size you up as either a traveller or meetor-greetor, they can’t predict your behavior and you’ve suddenly become a security risk. Airport customs and TSA lines are already areas inhospitable to personal freedoms. Apparently airport managers would like all their hallways and public centers to be as restricted. If cops had their way, public streets and sidewalks would be single-purpose conduits as well.

We await a federal judge’s ruling for now, with optimism in judgement superior to that of petty administrators, city lawyers and police. Seeking protection from the courts is contigent on the premise that if needed, the wisdom of the US Supreme Court could be brought to bear. Of late it’s hard to regard those justices as the brightest minds or uncorrupted. We have the Citizens United decision as an example. To which I would add, the terrible compromise that airports are not public forums.

As President Trump considers a follow-up executive order to replace his first Muslim Ban now stymied by the courts, it’s interesting to note we just marked the anniversary of FDR’s order to put Japanese-Americans, the “others” of his day, into internment camps. The supreme court of his day upheld his order. Technically that legal precedent still stands.

Virginia Dare was an “Anchor Baby”

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Not meaning to poke fun at young Ms Dare who disappeared along with the rest of the Roanoke Colony more than 400 years ago. More like mocking and reproving redneck bigots who make a big stink about other people having the same immigration privileges as THEIR ancestors did. Especially as it’s an election issue.

Along with the Religious Refugees. See, the first English immigrants were notably religious extremists fleeing from other religious extremists. Virginia the colony was named not for the Virgin Mary, but for Queen Elizabeth. The one who bullied Parliament into passing the Conformity doctrines. Which led to some hugely large massive horrifying monstrous big “civil” wars in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland. Then exported to America along with the ongoing British v Spain and France wars.  The plan was then as now (think Israel) put a large amount of people who are just too contentious to allow them to stay in the Motherland, give them discount passage and sell them limited supplies and weapons. And do a lot of it on credit. The French term for it was pioneers. A support system for military adventures.  Make sure they’re likely to piss off the natives, but not likely to survive without some “emergency” backup from Momma England.

Others did the same thing, the English just were the ones who got away with it. Davy Crockett was part of two such maneuvers. Born in Tennessee when the Revolution hadn’t been worked out, Tennessee having been treaty land which the Crown was refusing to allow English expansion. One of the sore spots that the sorehead revolutionaries used as an excuse for the revolution. It’s referenced in the Declaration of Independence. The British government honoring some of their treaty obligations by selling weapons to Natives. And blankets (ahem!) and other goods. The Treaties in question being the peace agreements after the 7 Years War which was fought mostly in Europe but in American History class we’re taught to call it the French and Indian War. And since he was born in 1786 which was just barely almost 20 years before the Louisiana purchase, where the kings of  France and Spain took turns financing each others wars by selling land in The New World which had never been visited by any European king. They sold land back and forth that they had never seen. Along with the people of the region. Subject of Spain one morning and France the next. The English and their bastard child The United States did the same thing.

to tie it all together….

Definitely Davy Crockett was born of illegal immigrants on Cherokee land. The Roanoke colony was located in what’s now the Carolinas, named for one of the Kings Charles of England. The Conformity Acts caused such frictions between English Christians that Protestant groups like the Pilgrim Church, Puritans, Presbyterians and of course Catholics were slaughtered and persecuted whenever their factions weren’t persecuting every other faction. And a whole bunch of Christians who just could not conform to other Christian doctrines fled to America to set up shop. And put up shot. There was for instance a running feud which often broke into gunfire between South Carolina and North Carolina about the difference between Presbyterian and Episcopalian and another cross-Potomac same thing because Virginia was mostly Protestant and Maryland was predominately Catholic.  You didn’t have to be across the Catholic Protestant line to piss off the authorities. Just being a Non Conformist protestant would do the trick. I got that from the Oxford World Almanac which interestingly enough is sponsored by the Episcopal Church.

Whatever happened to Ms Dare and the rest of the Roanoke settlers is pure speculation but there sure is a lot of that too. Some have said in my hearing that the Roanoke people assimilated into the Cherokee or other nearby tribes. No documentation of that, all the documentation is on the lines that they Never Were Found Again.   Some of the speculation seems, to me, very cult like.

And a lot of the ones who promote that kind of conspiracy theories are also heavily into the Birther and Minuteman militias. And with ties to the Klan.

But with all these centuries of Christian v Christian slaughter, it’s somehow the fault of Jewish merchants (who say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas)and Muslims. There have already been calls for the opening of internment camps for American Muslims.

Although the Hate Groups keep telling us that Muslims can’t be Americans. Or Native American Church. Or Jews. Or anybody who doesn’t attend Their Church. Ask any of those who proposing a Church State which one is to be the State Church and he’ll probably (eventually) say his own church of course.

Before any of all that comes around, maybe Christians better stop hating each other first. And your fellow Americans regardless of whether you think we’re actually Americans.

Turkey: where Europe hides its refugee internment concentration camp slums. And this time, Arbeit Nicht Macht Frei.

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The European Union has made a deal with Turkey to return escaped Syrian refugees to their cages. The escapees are civilians fleeing the war zones of Syria, where many of them already lived in refugee camps after fleeing Iraq and before that Palestine. So many people are seeking the safety of non-destabilized nations that the EU is full up. Too many refugees have survived the perilous crossing from Turkey to Greece that the EU wants to ship them back. To the internment camps blotting the Syrian boarder, tented slums encircled by razor wire, where huddled masses yearning to be free are concentrated and forbidden to leave. At the same time that the West demonizes Turkey, we’re counting on Turkey to jail the innocents fleeing our wars. One sticking point are the maquiladora sweatshops which exploit the captive cheap labor. EU labor laws protect against such abuse, thus slave labor pools are only profitable outside the EU. In 21st Century camps, Arbeit nicht macht frei, whether your work is weaving rugs for discount superstores or treading the waters of the Aegean.

The guard towers of Camp Amache, CO, Japanese-American internment camp

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Visitors to what remains of the WWII-era Granada Relocation Center located on Highway 50 past Lamar, are tempted to conclude that the remote location was isolation enough to restrict the movement of its 7,000 Japanese-American internees. Gone are all 560 buildings except their concrete foundations; the few remaining photographs depict a vast layout of spartan barracks, playing host to ordinary civilian lives, minus the atmosphere of incarceration. Were there cyclone fences and watch towers? The answer should not surprise you. Of course. Camp Amache was ringed by the usual multiple perimeters of prison fences, including six watch towers manned by military police, who were there, it was explained, for the internees’ protection. I think plans to further restore Amache need to begin with the security fortifications. If such blights on American history as these race-based detention centers are memorialized in the hope that our nation not do it again, it dishonors our victims, and blunts the lesson, not to illustrate our heavy hand.

I attended a recent screening of a documentary made of Camp Amache, attended by its producers, who expressed the usual motivation: in remembrance, never again. Special emphasis was placed on the contributions made by Japanese-Americans during the war, and on the magnanimity with which the internees accepted their lot. Survivors were not to receive an official apology until 45 years later, given $20,000 restitution for their livelihoods and families destroyed. It would be safe to say the audience felt well beyond the prejudice that had motivated their parents. Against Japanese-Americans.

Unfortunately both the documentary and the filmmakers’ commentary left the impression that “never again” describes a successful holding pattern. Of course, America has been at it again and as usual, its citizens have been obliviously complicit.

Look at the War on Islam, which has necessitated the internment of Muslim-Americans and Muslims worldwide. Guantanamo is not much different from the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA) special Isolation Centers such as Dalton Wells, near Moab, where the WRA sent internees profiled as potential insurgency threats.

America has been building a network of fresh detention facilities to house Hispanic-Americans who run afoul of the country’s illegal labor market. Most of the detainees are promptly deported, but many languish while immigration issues and family ties are sorted out. While ICE pretends to protect the American people from the security-threatening unlawfulness of illegal aliens, in reality its detention centers enforce the successful abuse of a Hispanic-American slave labor pool.

You need only visit a traditional prison or jail to see that an overwhelming disproportion of its inmates are African-American and Hispanic-American, far exceeding what can be excused as representative of America’s poor. The American judicial system is still stacked against non-whites, and motivated by the same racist premise of protecting the security of white Americans.

And of course there are the open air prisons which still incarcerate the Native-Americans, the internment camps we call reservations, the original Wartime Relocation Centers.

Original Anti-Zionist jokes in Monty Python’s LIFE OF BRIAN remain cut out of Criterion special edition

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monty-python-life-brian-ottoThink you know the saga of the deleted scenes from Monty Python’s LIFE OF BRIAN? Not if you trust Wikipedia. The 1979 comedy didn’t just take the mickey out of Jesus and the feuding Palestinian Liberation fronts, it poked fun at Zionists, as goose-stepping racists led by Eric Idle’s OTTO the NAZIRENE determined to promote Jewish racial purity, carve a Lebensraum from the “traditional Jewish areas of Samaria,” displace the Samaritans into internment camps, and plan an Anschluss of Jordan to “create a great Jewish state that will last a thousand years.” My, my, my. But the defamed parties had the last laugh. They acquired the studio with the rights to the film, obliterated the offending celluloid, reedited the video release, and have rewritten cinematic history.

Maybe you don’t care what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians. Did you know someone is messing with the oeuvre of Monty Python? We had the comedy sketches memorized in college. Who could have imagined the originals would be vulnerable to tampering?

I’m not sure this is an overreaction. Monty Python is not Shakespeare, what is? But it’s not Nicholas Sparks either. For a populist phenom I say Python rivals Swift. This is book burning, is what it is — a sinister effacing of creative work. In a recent British poll, Life of Brian was in contention for England’s greatest film comedy. But for your consideration, instead of a director’s cut, we’ve got a censor’s cut.

Here’s the lowdown in brief: three integral scenes of the theatrical release were removed from the video version. The third scene was recut to make up for the absence of the first two. And a key character was stricken from the credits.

When Criterion later released a collector’s edition, the missing sequences were included in the extras as “deleted scenes.” But these scenes were represented by mangled outtakes of the originals, from which key lines remain excised. Then an official narrative was fabricated to recount how the sequences had been removed from the original version to improve the flow, the crude outtakes testifying to why they didn’t make the cut.

But that’s all bullocks –and the niggling weak spot to this digital book burning is, ironically enough, that BOOKS were published in 1979 to accompany the film’s release: a mass-market paperback of the screenplay, and an oversized Monty Python Scrapbook.

The rewrite runs afoul too of anyone who remembers seeing the film in its first release.

Not My Tribe has suffered its own internal dissension over comparing Israel to the Nazis. Apparently it’s SO not done, not even Monty Python can get away with it.

You may have revisited the video many times, now the DVD, maybe you read about the scandals about the film’s release, maybe you memorized some of the Biggus Dickus dialog; are you curious that you missed the bits about Samaria, Jordan and purified Jewish blood?

When the Catholic church objects to a movie, it declares a boycott. Zionists take a more effective strategy. When pulling funding from the project doesn’t work, they buy the rights and delete the scenes. You’d think a film as celebrated as Life of Brian would be inviolate to culture vandals. And so far the desecration has escaped the legions of Monty Python fans. Wikipedia recounts how Otto’s scenes were deleted from the film, and thankfully resurfaced to be included as outtakes on the 2007 Criterion edition. But the account is untrue.

From restored out-takes we might surmise that Jewish objection were limited to the Star of David embellished as a swastika, but from the un-restored material it seems that the modern censors objected to Zionists depicted as determined to carve their own Lebensraum in Samariaby by means of Anschluss and concentration camps, for the sake of a third Jewish reich. And what have we now happening in the Occupied Territories which Israeli settlers insist on calling their Sumaria and Judea of biblical history, and what of the open air internment of the Palestinians in Gaza. Oh My Goodness.

The Criterion edition of Monty Python’s Life of Brian has some famously restored scenes, alleged to have been cut from the original version. They’re available again, and you can see them on Youtube. But it’s Poppycock. The scenes in question were actually removed from the video release, and “lost” by the studio which took over handmade films. The deleted scenes were actually out-takes of the originals. Fortunately, the screenplay published to accompany the 1979 release has the original lines, which vary quite curiously from what’s being peddled as the restored original. Yes, the deleted scenes have deleted scenes.

If you saw the 1979 film in the theater, you might remember Otto, the Hitleresque Zionist with the curiously non-German accent. Here is the original script made from the final take. The out-take restored as “deleted scenes” stray considerably from these lines. The lines in bold have simply been simply clipped.

BRIAN slips out through the back door and descends some steps into MANDY’S garden where he sits, head in hands.

Suddenly a voice assails him.

life of brian deleted sceneOTTO: Hail, Leader!

BRIAN: What?

OTTO: Oh, I– I’m so sorry. Have you seen the new Leader?

BRIAN: The what?

OTTO: The new Leader. Where is the new leader? I wish to hail him. Hail, Leader. See.

BRIAN: Oh. Who are you?

OTTO: My name. Is. Otto.

BRIAN: Oh.

OTTO: Yes. Otto. It’s time, you know. . .

BRIAN: What?

OTTO: . . . Time that we Jews racially purified ourselves.

BRIAN: Oh.

OTTO: He’s right you know. The new leader. We need more living room. We must move into the traditionally Jewish areas of Samaria.

BRIAN: What about the Samaritans?

OTTO: Well, we can put them in little camps. And after Samaria we must move into Jordan and create a great Jewish state that will last a thousand years.

BRIAN: Yes, I’m not sure, but I . . .

OTTO: Oh, I grow so impatient, you know. To see the Leader that has been promised our people for centuries. The Leader who will save Israel by ridding it of the scum of non-Jewish people, making it pure, no foreigners, no gypsies, no riff-raff.

BRIAN: Shh! Otto!

OTTO: What? The Leader? Hail Leader!

BRIAN: No, no. It’s dangerous.

OTTO: Oh, danger: There’s no danger. (flicks his fingers) Men!

A phalanx of armed, rather sinister, men appear from the shadows and fall in.

OTTO: Impressive, eh?

BRIAN: Yes.

OTTO: Yes, we are a thoroughly trained suicide squad.

BRIAN: Ah-hah.

OTTO: Oh yes, we can commit suicide within twenty seconds.

BRIAN: Twenty seconds?

OTTO: You don’t believe me?

BRIAN: Well . . .Yes . . .

OTTO: I think you question me.

BRIAN: No. No.

OTTO: I can see you do not believe me.

BRIAN: No, no. I do.

OTTO: Enough. I prove it to you. Squad.

SQUAD: Hail Leader.

OTTO: Co-mmit Suicide.

They all pull out their swords with military precision and plunge them into themselves in time, falling in a big heap on the ground. Dead.

OTTO: (with pride) See.

BRIAN: Yes.

OTTO: I think now you believe me. Yes?

BRIAN: Yes.

OTTO: I think now I prove it to you, huh?

BRIAN: Yes, you certainly did.

OTTO: All dead.

BRIAN: Yes.

OTTO: Not one living.

BRIAN: No.

OTTO: You see, they are all of them quite dead. See I kick this one. He’s dead. And this one’s dead, I tread on his head. And he’s dead. And he’s dead. All good Jewish boys, no foreigners. But they died a hero’s death and their names will live forever. Helmut . . . Johnny . . . the little guy . . . er . . . the other fat one . . . their names will be remembered . . . eventually . . . forever. So now I go. Hail Leader.

BRIAN: Wait Otto. You can’t just leave them all here.

OTTO: Why not–they’re all dead.

One oh the ‘corpses’ farts. There is a giggle.

OTTO: Wait a minute. There is somebody here who is not dead. There’s somebody here who is only pretending to be dead. Stand up, you.

One of the bodies stands up sheepishly. As he does so, he stands on someone else who quite clearly says ‘Ow.’

OTTO: Who said ‘ow’? You’re not dead either. Neither are you. Stand up, stand up, all of you. Oh, my heck, is there not even one dead?!

They have all stood up averting their eyes in shame.

HELMUT: No, sir. Not one.

ADOLF: We thought it was a practice, sir.

OTTO: Oh my cock! Tomorrow, as a punishment, you will all eat–pork sausages!

There is a horrified muttering at this suggestion. OTTO turns sharply to BRIAN.

OTTO: OK. Tell the Leader that we are ready to die for him the moment he gives the sign.

BRIAN: What sign?

OTTO: The sign that is the sign, that shall be the sign. Men, forward!

OTTO’S MEN march away singing their exciting song.

OTTO’S MEN’S SONG:
There’s a man we call our Leader.
He’s fine and strong and brave,
And we’ll follow him unquestioning
Towards an early grave. He-e gives us hope of sacrifice
And a chance to die in vain,
And if we’re one of the lucky ones,
We’ll live to die again.

BRIAN: Silly bugger.

A second scene involves Otto and his Nazirenes receiving the sign, as the crucifixion party departs the city gates.

JUDITH now is running through the crowded streets. She reaches some steps and climbs up onto a roof. Quickly, she opens a basket and releases a flock of pigeons.

A very STRANGE MAN is lying on a lonely hilltop. Suddenly he rouses himself, sits up and peers into the distance towards Jerusalem.

A flock of pigeons flies up against the sun.

Seeing this, the STRANGE MAN rouses himself and does an extremely odd but elaborate dance.

Further away, on an even lonelier hilltop, a pile of straw moves to reveal that it is in fact a MAN dressed in straw. He watches the STRANGE MAN’S dance closely.

STRAW LOOK-OUT: It is the sign!

Instantly OTTO appears, with all his men.

OTTO: The sign that is the sign?

LOOK-OUT: Yes!

life of brian deleted scene the signOTTO: Men! Our time has come! Our leader calls! Men forward!

The MEN march into the wall and each other.

OTTO: Oh my cock.

Of course the omission of Otto’s gang created a problem for the film’s final scene, where his men repeat their self-sacrifice beneath the crosses. Here was the original sequence:

Suddenly PARVUS looks up. He has heard something.

OTTO and his MEN appear over the skyline.

BRIAN: Otto! (a new flicker of hope in his eyes)

OTTO: Men, charge!

They charge.

The ROMANS, seeing this formidable army bearing down on them, finger their swords rather nervously and then break and run away back towards the city gate.

BRIAN’S face lights up with renewed hope as he sees OTTO’S army advancing at the double. The army arrives under the cross, swords held aloft. The ROMANS have all run away.

OTTO: (to Brian) Leader! We salute you. Men! Die for your cause!

With immaculate precision they all run themselves through, including OTTO.

OTTO: You see. Every man a hero. They died for their country.

BRIAN: You silly sods.

For the re-edited video and subsequent DVD versions, audio voice-overs were added to explain Otto’s final charge. None of this was in the original.

–[A group of faux oriental-looking warriors come over a hill, led by their leader, King Otto. Care to venture a guess as to who they are? Yes, it’s…]

WORKER
The Judean People’s Front!

PARVUS
The Judean People’s Front!

OTTO
Forward all!

WORKERS
Look out! The Judean People’s Front!

–[The JPF stop in front of Brian’s cross.]

OTTO
Ve are the Judean People’s Front! Crack suicide squad. Suicide Squad! Attack!!!
–[drumroll]
–[They all ceremonially whip out their weapons, open a hatch in their armor, and proceed to kill themselves.]

OTTO
Ungggghhh… that showed ’em, huh?

BRIAN
You silly sods.

11/16
ADDENDUM:
Scan from Monty Python Scrapbook of Brian of Nazareth, (NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1979) page 5: “Dramatis Personae, in order of appearance” lower ninth tenth of list.

LIFE OF BRIAN cast credits
Note Eric Idle as Otto, the Nazirene, evidently scrubbed from the revised credits too.

Doomed to repeat internment camps

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Several miles north of Moab, Utah, on Highway 191, there’s an Historical Interest marker to commemorate the Civilian Conservation Corps work camp at Dalton Wells. According to the plaque on the site, Camp DG-32 was used for public works through the Great Depression, and converted in 1943 into a concentration camp for Japanese Americans accused of being troublemakers at the civilian internment camps. The plaque offered an apology for the “total violation their civil rights,” and this admonition:
Civilian Conservation Corps DG-32 Dalton Wells
After which someone added in parentheses: “(Patriot Act, 2001)” and then as if to make the point, a next somebody scratched it out.

Full text of the marker:

Civilian Conservation Corps Camp DG-32 (Co. 234)
1935-1942

During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, CCC Camps were scattered all over the USA. They provided gainful employment to youth of the nation with work on public service projects. Between 1933 and 1942, four camps were located near Moab. Each camp worked on various natural resource project for the Soil Conservation Service, the National Park Service, and the forerunner of the Bureau of Land Management.

DG-32 was a long-lasting camp and typical of most with wooden, tar-paper covered barracks and buildings housing some 200 young men between the ages of 18 and 25. Enrollees came from the eastern states, and leadership was provided by the Army, Grazing Service, and local men experienced in construction and stock grazing needs.

Under spartan conditions, clothing, food, and housing were provided in the primitive camp. Pay was $30 per month with $25 sent home.

DG-32 projects included many range improvements: stock trails down the precipitous sandstone cliffs, spring developments, wells and stock ponds, eradication of rodents that competed with stock for feed, fences for corrals and pastures, reservoir dams, roads and bridges. These projects provided on the job training for the enrollees, besides the benefits they brought to the local economy. Many of these works are still in use today. The value of the camp and its works to Grand County is beyond estimation. It was a significant milestone that greatly influenced the economic history of the county.

All that remains of the camp today are the cottonwood trees planted by the enrollees that you see fronting this site, concrete slabs for buildings, graveled roads and rock-outlined walkways, the remains of an old windmill and a rock masonry water storage tank. These remnants signify the moving history of a time when America valiantly struggled to restore its economic stability and provide its young people with meaningful employment.

Japanese-American World War II Concentration Camp
1943

On January 11, 1943, a train pulled into Thompson Station north of here with armed Military Police guarding sixteen male American citizens of Japanese ancestry. While the locals of the town waited to cross the tracks, the entourage was loaded and transferred to the old abandoned “CCC” camp located here at Dalton Wells.

Their crime? They were classified as “troublemakers” in the Manzanar, California Relocation Center where they and their families had been forcibly located at the start of World War II. Removed from their homes and lands in California under a Presidential Executive Order, they were subject to the whim and mercy of poorly-trained bureaucrats and military personnel in the center. This Executive Presidential Order was the result of wartime hysteria, racial bigotry, and greed.

The original sixteen men were removed from Manzanar and brought here without the benefit of council. They did not have a formal hearing or proper arrest proceedings, and the action was in total violation of their civil rights. It was a process more compatible with fascism than democracy.

The inmates troubles worsened when and informer and confidant of the administration was beaten. An organizer of the mess hall workers was thrown into jail as a suspect. A meeting was held in the camp to protest the jailing and a riot resulted. Two inmates were killed by trigger-happy soldiers.

Other Japanese-American men were soon brought to the camp. Thirteen came from Gila River, Arizona, having been charged as being members of an organization which was fully sanctioned by camp officials. Ten more came from Manzanar as “suspected troublemakers.” Fifteen came from the Tule Lake, California, charged with refusing to register their availability for the draft and their loyalty to the U.S. under a set of confusing, denigrating requirements.

All these men were U.S. citizens; some were veterans of Work War I, others were family men, college graduates, and responsible U.S. citizens. Their incarceration here is a vivid example of how our Japanese-American citizens were treated during World War II. May this sad, low point in the history of our democracy never be forgotten, in the hope that it will never happen again.

The group was transferred by truck to an abandoned Indian school at Leupp, Arizona, on April 27, 1943. As those involved began to realize the inequality of the situation, the inmates were released back to relocation centers later that year. Thus, a black mark in the history of liberty and justice in the United States was ended.

Papieren Bitte? Just your shoes please

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mens shoesMost people can easily conjure the cinematic image of Gestapo officers blocking train passengers, demanding “Your papers please.” That such a scene could ever develop in America, haunts citizens opposed to national identity cards or embedded microchips. But with modern surveillance methods as pervasive as cellphones, perhaps today’s state security services have less need to verify who we are. I’ll assert the US Department of Homeland Security is charged more with making Americans feel the heavy boot print of authoritarianism.

I think that in the wake of 9/11, this nation has indeed mobilized a “papers please” law enforcement policy.

The proof is there in black and white in the Patriot Act; you can see it in the Civil Liberties-free zone which immigration officers have been empowered to enforce to 100 miles inland from our borders; and you can see it at our airports. Last night’s 60-Minutes questioned the punitive aspects of the TSA measures to which today’s airline passengers are subjected. Less surprisingly, CBS also suggested their probable ineffectiveness.

Having just paid a holiday visit to DIA, I was inclined to see more. Yes, this is another holiday post.

Credit where credit is due? It’s no coincidence this is about shoes.

Papieren Bitte
First, I’d like to deconstruct the film mythology, which originated in wartime, from Hollywood Home Front propaganda meant to demonize the Hun. Certainly the trench-coated SS officer, or leather-jacketed Gestapo detective, asking for your documents, cut a villainous figure. But they were, in reality, as out of the ordinary as today’s FBI or CIA agents. Have you ever happened upon a one of those?

More often by far, during WWII, the job of asking for a traveler’s “Legitimacion” was assigned to the gendarmes of the occupied countries, or to the collaborators who’d been deputized. These were ordinary constables and men who otherwise were unfit to serve in combat. Old frumps, maligned and bitter. If you can picture the run-of-the-mill TSA troll, you see where I’m going.

Public Transportation
Where travelers a half-century ago were taking trains, today the public city-to-city lattice is airborne. Today we queue for planes, not trains. And instead of producing our “papers” –I should say, IN ADDITION to producing our papers– we are required to remove our shoes, all sorts of articles, submit to searches, and refrain from carrying certain items, in order to thread the needle that allows us access to public travel. I’m not sure if today’s security screening isn’t the equivalent of the depiction of the 40s silver-screen.

Before you argue that I’m being alarmist, please consider that most Germans during the war, indeed the overwhelming majority of citizens of occupied Europe, had little to fear by being asked for their documents. You or I are not insurgents on the lam, nor aspiring bomb-throwers. We do not fear being sent to Guantanamo.

Indeed, you might remember, the movie heroes who sweated the Nazi checkpoints were always resistance fighters, saboteurs, or escaped Allied prisoners. Today, ask yourself how an enemy of the USA would fare trying to use an airport. If you have become aware now that our US Homeland does not show reticence to torture, or disappear, persons of interest, would modern airport security be any less a terrifying prospect for people who may not be in lockstep with the ever rogue-ideology of the current global administrators?

And so, what was the main purpose of policemen monitoring the trains of occupied Europe? To prevent illegal travel, or to deter the thought of sedition? Both. But those were the days of imperfect intelligence.

Today, we know that even the 9/11 hijackers were tracked well in advance of their boarding at Boston Airport. Since then, we know that intelligence agency Fusion Centers also parse the surveillance data of persons of mere tangential interest. We know that the NSA records all phone calls. We know the telecoms are doing something for which they are very insistent about receiving preemptory immunity.

Potential terrorists/hijackers have everybody on their tail.

The TSA fat bastards are for the rest of us.

Airport Fear-mongering
Do you remember the days when you could linger as you dropped off your loved ones at the airport? You could wait with them, or you could meet them as they walked off the plane. Now you are greeted by concrete barriers at the curb, you can’t help anyone with their bags. America’s airports have become high security zones, unwelcoming to all.

Permit me to interject the observation that there has not been a single domestic airport attack to justify the draconian measures which have impacted American tranquility. We abide being yelled at, for absolutely no reason except the scare-phrase “Remember 9/11.” Remember the Maine? Remember Pearl Harbor? Japanese Internment Camps anyone?

If you are the traveler, you have to strip yourself of dignity before a thick-necked tin-pot. Now airports are even replacing the metal detectors with X-ray gateways. You are required to raise your arms for a virtual strip search, where digital images of your nakedness are reviewed by the airport security. Official TSA statements explain that these digital records go no further than their desks.

You can choose to believe that, or believe that all our faces are being blurred, or that our corresponding identities are not matched with the images.

(A digression on the subject of intelligence files:
Meanwhile, consider that the NSA is recording ALL satellite borne phone calls. International and domestic. They get around the “wire-tapping” restrictions by addressing it as “packet collecting.” To their devices, it’s an altogether new technology, thereby unencumbered by civil right legislation protection.

Our imaginations cannot fathom how spooks can listen to all the world’s satellite calls, but their imaginations know that someday the software will be developed to accomplish that task. Won’t they be kicking themselves later if they hadn’t stored as much as they could of our conversations BEFORE anyone suspected all telephones were eavesdropped upon?

-By the way, did you miss the memo that every cellphone is capable of being an eavesdropping device, even when it’s not engaged in a phone call? Would it be beyond the pale to imagine that if a near infinite number of calls are recorded, another near infinite amount of off-line talk is being aggregated in addition? If you can store more on your iPod than you can read in 100 lifetimes, supercomputer storage can probably lap your imagination by 100 to the 100th, I’m just thinking.)

Respect Authority
Well look at me, I’m only underlining where the DHS is happy to have us all place emphasis. FEAR. The security at today’s airports won’t keep box cutters off of airplanes, but it will keep a citizenry from daydreams of dissent.

So much ado,
And not enough DO? You already know what to do. Respect authority? Disrespect false authority! Take a lead from Comrade al-Zairi, you too can make it about the shoes.

We’ve all of us, you know it, mouthed to ourselves the defiant retort, rehearsed for if and when that imaginary Nazi hits us up for our papers: “Papers? I don’t need to show you no stinkin’ papers!”

From LA, I remember a variant which Hispanics directed at La Migra. They wished.

Anyone WITH papers can defy authority with the full confidence that comes from “I am an American” impunity. But can undocumented immigrants say it? Can Middle-Eastern-looking gentlemen say it? Not hardly.

YOU CAN.

My brave little fantasy insurgent, why not offer that rebel yell to the TSA? Tell them you don’t need to remove your stinkin’ shoes! (Double- entendre unintended.) They won’t let you on the plane, but that’s where beloved Capitalism provides your audience.

Put your courage where your mouth is
Let the airlines hear your rebel yell. “We don’t need your stinkin’ airplane!” If they don’t remove the Beirut decor concrete barriers, if they don’t send the TSA mini tyrants packing, if they don’t let you travel with toiletries of your damn choosing, you’re not going to take their stinkin’ flights.

If they’re not going to let you park up close to the terminal, where you used to be able to park but now those spaces are let out to valet parking outfits, you’re not going to visit their airport. Period.

Is there anywhere that you need to go in a hurry, besides out of the country for a long, long spell?

Drive, it’s still free
If you’re going to stick around, boycott the airlines. Use your car.

As has been demonstrated at Arizona checkpoints –as seen on YouTube– a car and a video camera can get you anywhere unmolested. If you are stopped at an DHS “immigration” checkpoint, you hold the upper hand. You can persist in being let to pass without answering a single question. If they detain you, you have a lawsuit. In your car, you can say with impunity still “I don’t need to show you no stinkin’ papers!”

Solitary confinement blocks for Ft Carson

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See more precast prison cells headed for PCMS at csaction.orgMark Lewis has been sent photographs taken by an alert Southeast Coloradan, of trucks laden with strange cargo for the Ft Carson PCMS. Strapped to each truck bed are several self contained units, of what appear to be modular living quarters, if your idea of a studio apartment is a single room, five foot by ten. On one end of each there’s a window in the form of a single narrow slit and at the other end a door with a similar window and a small utility door. If you were to imagine a place to conceal the Man in the Iron Mask in 21st Century prefab construction material, this would be it. The modular design looks like they’re made to fit into a honeycomb, reached by way of metal grates.
Windows resembled these.
A recent executive order has cleared the way for military bases to house civilian detention facilities. I imagined barracks like the WWII internment camps. These accommodations look more suited to Guantanamo.

See you in prison

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Bush dictator quote from 2000Quietly, with little mention in the press, the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive was signed in May 2007. This directive places all governmental power in the hands of the President in the case of a catastrophic emergency (as defined by him alone). It also allows him to take control of the private and nonprofit sectors. It effectively abolishes the checks and balances built into the Constitution and demolishes the Bill of Rights. This is, of course, necessary to keep us safe in case of a national disaster. The “Unitary Executive” would be able to act quickly and decisively, without any interference from those other two annoying branches of government, slow-moving and contentious as they are.

Our Constitution has never been about efficiency. The checks and balances built into it were created to keep any one individual or branch of government from having unilateral power. It lays the groundwork for a democracy, not for a well-oiled machine.

George Bush has shown extreme disdain for the Constitution, the very document he swore to uphold. He has vetoed only a handful of bills while in office, but he has attached signing statements to more than a thousand, clearly indicating scorn for Congress and his commitment to enforce only the laws he chooses. He has taken bills designed to protect the American public and has amended them to be used against us. Congress recently handed Zippy even more power by passing the Police America Act 2007. He has stripped us of our right to privacy, our right against unreasonable search and seizure, our right to due process. All in the name of the fighting terror.

We already know that President “Hyperbole” Bush is a master of exaggeration, if not outright prevarication. He and his oil buddy, Cheney, lied to get us into Iraq. They’ve lied to keep us in Iraq. Long ago they planned to get their hands on all of that beautiful unctuous black gold under the desert. They are not about to cede power to a successor until they’ve gotten the goods. What terrible national catastrophe is up his sleeve that will enable him to retain power?

I won’t speculate about what the catastrophe will be, but WorldNetDaily.com reported yesterday that the administration has been authorized to set up civilian prisons at military installations, something that has not been done in our country since the WWII Japanese internment camps. Under international law, internment camps are used in times of war to incarcerate large groups of people deemed to be enemies or “belligerents,” indefinitely and without trial, of course. Hasn’t Bush already warned us that if we are not with him, then we are with the terrorists? Read the handwriting on the wall.

When the occupant of the highest office in the land decides what the law is, singlehandedly, we no longer live in a democratic society. We live under a dictator, the Unitary Executive. While we were sleeping, Zippy the Monkey’s big dream of being THE Decider has been realized. We are basically living in an autocracy. The Founding Fathers are turning over and over in their graves. But few of the living seem to care.

Prepare yourself for the war with Iran. Prepare yourself for the impending terrorist attack. Prepare for the national catastrophe that will allow the Unitary Executive to suspend the 2008 election and stay in power indefinitely.

Just watch. He’ll do it. He’s the DECIDER. We gave him that power. And he’s willing and able to use it.

Internment camp Granada Colorado

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Rocky Mountain News has more pictures of Camp Amache in Granada Colorado
It can happen here. It did.
 
Continuing our tour of the American penal system… we’re told about the WWII internment camps for Japanese-American citizens. Where were they? The Granada War Relocation Center, or Camp Amache, 1942-1945, was located near Granada Colorado, east of Lamar on Highway 50.