Brave New Freedom

[Judge Bean]

Brave New Freedom

In the first place, you will notice the increasing use of the new F word?freedom?to sanctify the most incredible range of federal activities. Instead of the ?fight against terror? buzzphrase of the first four, the edict has apparently been issued that the golden words for the next four years, used to justify government encroachments on private lives and local power, are ?spread freedom.?



You can see the reason for the switch in attitude and rhetoric, but the new propaganda doesn?t fit really well with such things as increasing use of federal agents to ?fight gangs? or, as below, a public health campaign to ensure a continuing boom in pharmaceutical sales. Mental health has only a tenuous, metaphorical connection to the type of ?freedom? the U.S. is supposedly ?spreading? in the Middle East.



We should try to keep the simple language straight in order not to be doped up into acquiescing in the government?s obvious plan to turn us into blind, consuming automatons, living in a desert world in which we are dependent upon a tightly-controlled and expensive supply of drugs and synthetic food. As the environment deteriorates, we will more and more need more and more expensive and rare kinds of medicine and equipment. We will need dialysis, implants, transfusions, steroids, and iron lungs. We will not be able to buy necessities without? well, let?s take it one step at a time.



First, the language. It always starts with the twisted words, doesn?t it? What is freedom? Is it something that is ?spread,? like peanut butter? Do we already have it, are we already born with it, or is it something that is given to us by President Bush? Is there an ?old? freedom, that needs to be replaced with a ?new? one?



One more thing: this is a small excerpt from a long document, and it?s from the summary introduction. It is very difficult to find in the document language that says what the government wants to use it for, and it?s not even very clear in the excerpt, so I?ll make it as clear as I can.



The government wants to screen your children at school, without your participation, for mental health problems, chiefly Attention Deficit Disorder; thereafter compel you somehow to forcefeed them psychotropics. Everybody following along?

\"President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America

​

Executive Summary
Vision Statement

We envision a future when everyone with a mental illness will recover, a future when mental illnesses can be prevented or cured, a future when mental illnesses are detected early, and a future when everyone with a mental illness at any stage of life has access to effective treatment and supports - essentials for living, working, learning, and participating fully in the community.







Goal 4 - Early Mental Health Screening, Assessment, and Referral to Services Are Common Practice

In a transformed mental health system, the early detection of mental health problems in children and adults - through routine and comprehensive testing and screening - will be an expected and typical occurrence. At the first sign of difficulties, preventive interventions will be started to keep problems from escalating. For example, a child whose serious emotional disturbance is identified early will receive care, preventing the potential onset of a co-occurring substance use disorder and breaking a cycle that otherwise can lead to school failure and other problems.

Quality screening and early intervention will occur in both readily accessible, low-stigma settings, such as primary health care facilities and schools, and in settings in which a high level of risk exists for mental health problems, such as criminal justice, juvenile justice, and child welfare systems. Both children and adults will be screened for mental illnesses during their routine physical exams. \"

 

[CaryP]

Re: Brave New Freedom

Loud and clear Paul. This one's been coming, but this is the first I've seen of an "official" document on the program. Thanks for the update. God, it's even got the F word in the title. What a guy.

Cary

 

[StarLord]

Re: Brave New Freedom

Yes, hasn't the USDA just classified psycotropics as a new source of Vitamin C, A, D, B1, B2, and B12? The new 'Wonder' Drug of the 21st century. Take enough of it and you will be wondering what to do next also.....

Luckily for us all the mental health testing we ever saw was when the doctor came in and said, "Turn you head, cough", "Turn your head, cough", "Turn your head, cough"..........

 

[Judge Bean]

Re: Brave New Freedom

The entire Bush administration is gearing up for God knows what-- getting its metaphorical arsenal tight. It has gotten to the point that you know that these phrases are going to appear in any given speech: Spread Freedom, Fight Terrorism, Activist Judges, Sanctity of Marriage. In one of the State of the Unions he even managed to use Activist Judges and Saving Marriage in one sentence within a couple of words.

You do not think that this is much to worry about, right?

The problem is, these phrases each mean almost the opposite of what they pretend to mean, and are intended to be substituted for thought. In one issue of my local newspaper, youth gangs were called "urban terrorists," and the Attorney General (joining the Secretary of State and many others) was characterized as having the defense against terrorist attacks as his primary mission.

The Attorney General does not prosecute foreign criminals, and the office has neglected its actual work, as proven by the reduction in the number of civil rights cases it has investigated and filed-- almost half over four years. Likewise, the purpose of the Secretary of State is to conduct foreign policy and the diplomatic mission-- and we have been told that terrorists are "stateless" and that harboring them is against international law.

That's the international law that the U.S. chooses to comply with selectively.

Don't be fooled by the tin ring of the phrases: I'd wager that there isn't anyone you know who believes that freedom should be an entitlement of only the well-off, or that terrorists should get away with anything, or that judges should engage in moral politics, or that marriage should be trashed. What they are doing is a fancy "wrapping in the flag," as taught by the Elder Bush: pick petty, inarguable issues, and bang the drum.

So it looks as though the program is actually directed at U.S. citizens-- and, by program, I mean the chief mission of the government. No one, or very few, will protest their mistreatment of criminal suspects; some will notice the strange obsession of the government in incantation and militarism, and will wonder whether it is something to worry about; a small number, perhaps some of you, will see the actual danger to us and act.

My suggestion is to decide the range of your radius of dissent. This describes the circle you are willing to draw around yourself and your family within which you will not permit the government to encroach on your rights. Be as vigilant about what happens to all who may fall within the circle as you would be about your loved ones. If it's only just as far as your curb, it still an area you will not permit them to violate.

It's just a way of thinking about the problem. Regard the perimeter as a flexible range that can include remote locations and faraway friends and relatives. Or your whole town.

Our circles, also, all intersect on the forum.

 

[Judge Bean]

Re: Brave New Freedom

Today the guns were silent on Okinawa...</span>


Some of you may remember the novel 1984, by George Orwell, cited more often than read, in which history, also, is cited more often than read, or understood, and deliberately so, in order to rewrite it to justify whatever the government does, and justify it ahead of time.

This is the present state of affairs with our government; we have become the future predicted in the novel, at least in this particular way. The rest I will leave to your imagination.


Modern history is currently being rewritten by the authorities and their jingoists on a daily basis. That is, what happened yesterday is being cooked and spun today, this morning, and dished back to you in the evening when you are too tired trying to make ends meet and fill your tank with $2.50 per gallon gas to question it.

In a recent column justifying the new American policy of blind violence toward others, one writer compared the current filthy little war with the epic heroism of the Pacific War in 1945.


Once again, he restated the old chestnut about how the atomic bombs were necessary to save the loss of American lives (and Japanese) sure to come from an invasion of the home islands. We won?t go into that now, except to note that it, too, is a justification slapped on after the fact, and had very little to do with the actual White House decision to drop the bombs.

The bombs were used to end the war, and the war was not winding down. It was likely to end in a blaze one way or another?a holocaust. We were able to choose the primary nationality of the victims. We used the bombs to scare the hell out of them, and terrorize them into treating for peace: exactly what happened.


War is all hell. You don?t get to call it good after the fact if you started it, especially if you started it for one reason and changed your mind later. I detect among the propagandists now a suggestion that it may be OK to use nuclear weapons against our enemies, and this is the way it is insinuated, by reference to the sacred use of the Bomb in The Big One.



Don?t misunderstand: any American who puts himself or herself in harm?s way is patriotic and heroic. It does not necessarily follow from this, however much Mr. Bush and his champions wish, that to order these citizens into battle is patriotic and heroic, no more than a full assault on the Constitution becomes patriotic by calling the assault the ?Patriot Act.?



War is wrong; it?s evil. It may be OK under the laws of nature, but it violates Natural Law, the purported basis of our vaunted Rule of Law under the Constitution.

The difference is this: under the laws of nature, you are justified in waging war to acquire territory, or just out of pure cussedness or urge to kill; while under Natural Law, we try to restrain the base instincts, try to settle things amicably, and resort to violence for self defense or the defense of others, including the protection of the community?s freedom to govern itself.

The current war in Iraq was called for a bogus purpose, and waged in order to gain Iraq.


The early American colonies recognized in their provincial charters and constitutions a right to keep and bear arms, explicitly both for the purposes of self defense and defense of the state.



War may be a necessary evil when the globe is overrun by military dictators, as it was in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, who waged campaigns of genocide against imaginary enemies of the state, often their own citizens. We always knew that we\'d be next, that Hitler would have landed on the coast after he was through with Europe. We knew that the Japanese would not have had too much trouble invading California, however difficult it would have been to hold onto it later.

The tyrants had turned the whole world into a vicious bonfire, and we were not safe by any means. The men who landed on Okinawa ran willingly, toting full packs, directly into the maw of that inferno, and could attribute their sacrifice to a just cause. And they were ordered to do so, and duty is a just cause all its own, though you can see how it depends upon a trustworthy leader to be just.


But the requirements of an elite gang of corporate profiteers does not constitute the moral necessity for war, and no amount of comparing us to the Great Generation will make it so.

The Twin Towers were like Pearl Harbor; marketplace jihadist bombers can be compared to Kamikaze pilots; a war on tyranny can be likened to a struggle to rid society of terror, crime, drugs, or poverty; but to equate our situation by a series of propitious analogies is not only jingoism, it?s a formal fallacy.


We are often compared to Rome by the new apologist revisionists. Rome had to enforce imperial rule by a state of constant war, so we should not shy from that sort of task. Rome had to guard against both the corruption of decadence within and the onslaught of barbarians (who "shared different values") from without; we ought to be mindful of the same things.



Here?s where the reasoning shows its faults: Rome also sustained itself on slave labor, severe restrictions on civil rights, constant military conquest for no reason other than looting, and, in the end, by discarding the last semblance of citizen rule. Should we not also do as the Romans did, and prepare civilization for centuries of ?the death of reason??



You often hear nowadays about justified war. In this view, the current war?invasion, conquest, and occupation of sovereign, independent foreign nations?is conducted for the purpose of establishing democracy. For one thing, we have no right to establish democracies or spread our ideas forcibly to others; for another, this is not why we started this war.



If you can still hear it past the tin drums of the White House, you might agree that different reasons were given at the outset. Bush is greatly concerned that American will vacillate, or be perceived as irresolute in the face of danger, but he has compelled America to perform the most monumental flipflop in history.

But if what we say to the world about what we do means so little that we can adapt it to what we end up doing, and put our hands in our pockets and whistle past the constable, hoping the lies will be forgotten, we are seen by the rest of the world as con-artists, flimflam men.


You know, rainmakers; thimblerigs.

What will our enemies think of us when we threaten to capture them ?dead or alive?? Oh, yeah, they always say stuff like that, especially when they get a guy wearing cowboy boots in the Oval Office.


We are liars; the government has lied in our name, but not on our behalf. Either way, we are still responsible for the lies. The soldiers in combat are paying for them?they pay the highest price. They are sacrificing themselves for us, right now as we speak.



The reasons for the war cannot be changed to justify our purposes after the fact; this, too, is fallacious reasoning. A reason, an intent, a purpose, is a thing formed before the fact, before you act.

If, in the case of a big war, its explanation is only later understood (as in the case of ?Lincoln?s War?), you do not pretend that the initial purpose never existed, or, as in the present case, that the lie was never told. That is dishonest, and, in the case of the government, illegal.


I say illegal because the enormous violation of trust breaks the president?s oath of office to preserve the Constitution. He is not bound to save a piece of paper; he is bound by law to keep the system intact, a system which depends upon the will of an informed citizenry to live in a society ruled by law.

Informed means not lied to; ruled by law means governed by principles of peace and justice between individuals. This is why our soldiers offer to give up their safety, to preserve these values. They, too, take an oath. They usually stick to theirs, though.


<span style=\'font-family:Times New Roman\'>It would not be wise for the president?s apologists and revisionists to write our history while it is emerging in a form and manner embarrassing to the patriotic citizen.

PJL

 

[StarLord]

Re: Brave New Freedom

Awesome per usual my friend, just Awesome.

 

[Zoomerz]

Re: Brave New Freedom

Thank you Paul! Might as well close this thread now, cuz you just said it all...

Z-

 

[KiraSjon]

Re: Brave New Freedom

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Zoomerz\")</div>

Thank you Paul! Might as well close this thread now, cuz you just said it all...

Z-[/b]

None-the-less, I think we'll leave it open in case anyone would like to reply :lol:

 

[CaryP]

Re: Brave New Freedom

Yes, awesome post Paul. Your words are wisdom indeed. I think this thread needs to remain open so that others may comment.

Cary

 

[Zoomerz]

Re: Brave New Freedom

heh, it was just my way of saying Paul said it all! Maybe I need lessons in humor! I was joking about closing the thread!

Z-