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“Political language has to consist largely of euphemisms . . .
and sheer cloudy vagueness.”
H.R 1955:
the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention
Act of 2007 recently passed by the House—a companion bill is in
the Senate—is barely one sentence old before its Orwellian
moment:
It begins,
“AN ACT - To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other
purposes.”
Those whose
pulse did not quicken at “other purposes” have probably not read
George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language,” or
they voted for the other George both times.
Orwell’s
jeremiad on the corruption of the English language and its
corrosive effect on a democracy was written two years before his
novel 1984 spelled
out in chilling detail the danger of Newspeak, which renders
citizens incapable of independent thought by depriving them of
the words necessary to form ideas other than those promulgated
by the state.
After its
opening “tribute” to Orwell, H.R 1955 is strategically peppered
with Newspeak regarding the establishment of a National
Commission and university-based Centers of Excellence to
“examine and report upon the fact and causes of violent
radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based
violence in the United States” and to make legislative
recommendations for combating it.
The “sheer
cloudy vagueness” of H.R 1955, as well as its terror factor, may
account for its bipartisan 404-6 House vote but how, in an era
informed by the Bush-Cheney administration’s egregious assault
on the Bill of Rights, can the phrase “other purposes” fail to
raise the “National Terror Alert” from its current threat level
of “elevated” to “severe.”
Future
“other purposes” will undoubtedly be justified by the Act’s use
of the term “violent radicalization,” which it defines as “the
process of adopting or promoting an extremist
belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically
based violence . . .” or by the folksy, Lake Wobegonesque
“homegrown terrorism,” defined as “the use, planned use, or
threatened use, of
force or violence by a group or individual born [or]
raised . . . within the United States . . . to intimidate
or coerce the United States, the civilian population . .
. or any segment thereof . . . [italics added].”
In the
service of some self-serving “other purposes,” will “extremist
beliefs” become any belief the temporary occupants of the White
House consider antithetical and threatening to their political
agenda?
Will
“ideologically based violence” or the use of “force” become
little more than the mayhem resulting after a peaceful protest,
daring to move beyond the barbed wire of the free speech zone,
is attacked by a truncheon-wielding riot squad armed with tear
gas, German Shepard dogs and water cannons?
Will the
unarmed, constitutionally protected dissenters who are fending
off blows or dog bites, or who are striking back in self-defense
become “homegrown terrorists” and suffer draconian sentences for
their attempt to “intimidate or coerce” the state with free
thought and free speech?
A clue to
future “other purposes” may lie in the Act’s parentage. The
proud House “mother” of the Patriot Act’s evil twin is Rep. Jane
Harmon (D-CA), chair of the
Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. Rep. Harmon has
admitted to a long and productive relationship with the RAND
Corporation, a California based think-tank with close ties to
the military-industrial-intelligence complex. RAND’s 2005 study,
“Trends in Terrorism,” contains a chapter titled, “Homegrown
Terrorist Threats to the United States.”
Keep in
mind that the RAND Corporation was set up in 1946 by Army Air
Force General Henry “Hap” Arnold as “Project RAND” sponsored by
the Douglas Aircraft Company. Keep in mind also that Donald
Rumsfeld was its chairman from 1981 to 1986 and Lewis “Scooter”
Libby, Dick Cheney’s felonious former chief of staff, and
Condoleezza Rice were trustees. Enough said!
RAND
maintains that “homegrown terrorism” will not be the result of
jihadist sleeper cells. Rather, it will result from anti-globalists
and radical environmentalists who
“challenge
the intrinsic qualities of capitalism, charging that in the
insatiable quest for growth and profit, the philosophy is
serving to destroy the world’s ecology, indigenous cultures, and
individual welfare.”