{"id":5455,"date":"2021-01-10T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T04:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2021-01-10T23:36:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T04:36:19","slug":"the-boot-is-coming-down-hard-and-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=5455","title":{"rendered":"The Boot Is Coming Down Hard and Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Boot Is Coming Down Hard and Fast by Caitlin Johnstone \u2013 January 10, 2021 https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2021\/01\/09\/the-boot-is-coming-down-hard-and-fast\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A lot\u2019s been happening really fast. It\u2019s a white noise saturation day and it\u2019s impossible to keep track of everything going on, so I\u2019m just going to post my thoughts on a few of the things that have happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2756<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden has announced<\/a> plans to roll out new domestic terrorism laws in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. 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,\u201d Wall Street Journal<\/em> reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that Biden has often boasted<\/a> about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first draft of the civil rights-eroding<\/a> USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9\/11 attacks<\/a>. Legislators later admitted<\/a> that they hadn\u2019t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following<\/a> back in 2008:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMonths before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995<\/a>. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of \u2018terrorism\u2019 that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode<\/a> \u2018constitutional and statutory due process protections\u2019 and would \u2018authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s bill was never put to a vote<\/a>, but after 9\/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCivil libertarians were opposed to it,\u201d Biden said in 2002<\/a> of his bill. \u201cRight after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, \u2018Joe, I\u2019m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post 9\/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside. pic.twitter.com\/ADgGcf7qEo<\/a><\/p>

\u2014 Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 8, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A recent Morning Joe<\/em> appearance by CIA analyst-turned House Representative Elissa Slotkin eagerly informed us that the real battle against terrorism is now inside America\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe post 9\/11 era is over,\u201d Slotkin tweeted<\/a> while sharing a clip of her appearance. \u201cThe single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don\u2019t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins,\u201d tweeted<\/a> journalist Whitney Webb in response. \u201cWhat she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the \u2018War on [foreign] terror\u2019 to the \u2018War on domestic terror\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2756<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to pressures<\/a> from all directions including its own staff<\/a>, Twitter has followed Facebook\u2019s lead and removed Donald Trump\u2019s account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it wasn\u2019t just Trump. Accounts are vanishing quickly, including some popular Trump supporter accounts<\/a>. I myself have lost hundreds of followers on Twitter in the last few hours, and I\u2019ve seen people saying they lost a lot more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also wasn\u2019t just Trump supporters; leftist accounts are getting suspended too<\/a>. The online left is hopefully learning that cheering for Twitter \u201cbanning fascists\u201d irrationally assumes that (A) their purges are only banning fascists and (B) they are limiting their bans to your personal definition of fascists. There is no basis whatsoever for either of these assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow! These people hold rallies protesting the unjust evictions of poor people during the Covid. We have been telling you. They will come for the Progressives as well. That is why we must protect our freedom of speech and our civil liberties. pic.twitter.com\/IXVW86HjL6<\/a><\/p>

\u2014 Craig Pasta Jardula (@yopasta) January 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Google has ratcheted things up even further by removing Parler<\/a> from its app store, and Apple will likely soon follow<\/a>. This push to marginalize even the already fringey social media sites is making the libertarian\/shitlib argument of \u201cIf you don\u2019t like censorship just go to another platform\u201d look pretty ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all happening just in time for the Biden administration, about which critics had already been voicing grave concerns<\/a> regarding the future of internet censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The censorship of a political faction at the hands of a few liberal Silicon Valley billionaires will do the exact opposite of eliminating right-wing paranoia and conspiracy theories, and everyone knows it. You\u2019re not trying to make things better, you\u2019re trying to make them worse. You\u2019re not trying to restore peace and order, you\u2019re trying to force a confrontation so your political enemies can be crushed. You\u2019re accelerationist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Venn diagram of people who support the latest social media purges and people who secretly hope Trumpers freak out and attempt a violent uprising would look like the Japanese flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

"Domestic terrorists"; "coup"; "attacks on our democracy"; welcome to the latest iteration of the War on Terror.

The Boutique Left, in the blink of an eye, discards all talk of healthcare & stimulus checks to help lay the groundwork and usher in a new age of authoritarianism. pic.twitter.com\/qwMwe8WtjZ<\/a><\/p>— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) January 8, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote>