Americans Should Be Very Skeptical Of Calls For New "Terrorism" Laws by Caitlin Johnstone!
(2019-08-04 at 22:32:15 )

Americans Should Be Very Skeptical Of Calls For New "Terrorism" Laws by Caitlin Johnstone

Two mass shootings have rocked the United States in less than 24 hours, leaving dozens dead and many more wounded.

The first in El Paso, Texas was allegedly perpetrated by a white supremacist whose racist motives are outlined in a rambling "manifesto", the second allegedly by a self-described "leftist" whose motives, like the 2017 Las Vegas shooter, are presently unknown.

These incidents occurred a week after another mass shooting in Gilroy, California.

All the usual United States gun control debates have of course reignited, which is understandable.

Alongside this debate, however, we are seeing another, far more pernicious agenda being raised that I would like to address here.

In an interview with MSNBCs Joy Reid, notorious liar and propagandist Malcolm Nance claimed that existing laws are not sufficient for prosecuting the El Paso shooter, because there are no laws designating his act of mass murder as "domestic terrorism".

"I think that the United States Congress needs to take up right away a series of domestic terrorism laws," Mr. Nance said. "It would be very simple: just match them to the words -international terrorism-, so that a member of al-Qaeda and a member of a white nationalist terrorist cell or a militia that thinks they are going to carry out international acts of terrorism are equal all the way around.

Right now there are no laws called -domestic terrorism law-.

They can get you for firearms, they get you for hate crimes, but you are not treated as a terrorist.

This act in El Paso was clearly by all definitions a terrorist attack in the United States, but of course by the nature of the person being white and American he can not be treated like a member of ISIS or al-Qaeda. He can not even be detained, he can only be treated as a murderer."

(The accused, for the record, is in fact under arrest currently, and prosecutors say that they are treating it as a domestic terrorism case for which they are seeking the death penalty.

This is in Texas, so he will be dead before the next Fast & Furious movie. Mr. Nances notion that prosecutors hands are somehow tied here is silly.)

"But he is a murderer with a political intent who is spreading an ideology," Mr. Nance continued. "So Congress should take that up immediately. And let us see if the White House will not sign that legislation. That would be very revealing."

In other words, shove the legislation through and call anyone who opposes it a Nazi lover.

Political commentary is flooded with the word "terrorism" today.

People are demanding that the El Paso shooter in particular and white supremacists in general be labeled terrorists by the narrative-making commentariat, and you know what?

I totally get it.

The push since 9-11-01 to tar Muslims as "terrorists" has been extremely obnoxious and fueled by hate and bigotry, so it makes sense for progressive-minded people to push for the egalitarian usage of that term.

But before doing so, please reflect on what lessons we learned from the post-9-11-01 "Islamic terrorism" scare.

"Years of misguided alarmism over -Islamic terrorism- resulted in the erosion of civil liberties, militarization of police, and a host of other bad outcomes.

Applying the same alarmist logic to -white nationalist terrorism- is likely to produce a host of similarly bad outcomes," tweeted independent journalist Michael Tracey in response to the chatter.

"I am telling you now that the government will use the violence that President Trump himself has rallied as an excuse for more militarization, more surveillance, more violations of civil liberties - and a lot of people are going to welcome these things because they are afraid," tweeted Truthouts Kelly Hayes.

"I am not guessing or being creative here.

This is about having a sense of history and a sense of how these systems function in the present. I would love to be wrong. I would celebrate being wrong. But I am not."

Indeed, it is an established fact that the United States government will use the narrative about the need to fight terrorism to advance pre-existing agendas.

The first draft of the massive USA Patriot Act was introduced a week after the 9-11-01 attacks, far too fast for anyone to have gathered the necessary information from all the relevant government bodies about what changes were necessary and typed out the hundreds of pages of the bill.

Legislators later admitted that they did not even have time to read through the densely worded bill before passing it the next month, so to believe that it could have been written in a week would be childish.

In 2011 then-Congressman Ron Paul told Politico that "the Patriot Act was written many, many years before 9-11-01," adding that the attacks simply provided "an opportunity for some people to do what they wanted to do."

Mr. Paul was serving in Congress when the Patriot Act was passed. The Act has since been used to erode human rights at home and abroad by destroying Fourth Amendment protections and legalizing Orwellian surveillance, and it is safe to assume that the opaque and unaccountable government agencies who were greatly empowered by it had already wanted this to happen.

I have no easy answers for the United States Americas mass shooting epidemic, and as an Australian I see the gun control debate as outside my sovereign territory.

I will simply suggest, as I so often do, that if United States of Americans really want to address the problem then the best place to start is to do the first ever honest and in-depth study on the effects of domestic propaganda on the American mind, particularly war propaganda.

There are only so many times a certain type of mind can be told violence-glorifying lies before it snaps; if anyone researches mass shootings in the light of the constant psychological abuse that United States of Americans suffer at the hands of their mass media, I guarantee they will find a connection.

United States of Americans are the most propagandized people on earth because of their proximity to the most strategically crucial part of the empire; it is not a coincidence that they are also by far the most prone to mass shootings.

One thing I can tell you will not fix your problems, America, and that is listening to the propagandists who want you to hand over even more control to a government that has already begun floating high-altitude surveillance balloons over your country without your permission.

Do not let them bully you with fear.

Thanks for reading!!
Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".