[Seattle-editorial] A message linking to an article we just completed

[H&J Schwendinger]

The following   message provides a link to an article we just completed on 'weapons of mass repression'.  The article has been placed on our homepage, which also indicates our professional background. If  you think it is appropriate, can you display it for your viewers?
Profs. Herman &Julia Schwendinger

  
DISARM AMERICA'S WEAPONS OF MASS REPRESSION

This message will link you to a 44-page essay called, "Information Technology and Weapons of Mass Repression". But who has time to absorb this long though readable work? Especially when an unjust war is about to break out and Henry Kissinger has been appointed to investigate agencies that failed to prevent 9/11. 'Kiss-of-Death' Kissinger's qualifications, you will recall, include his war crimes and crimes against humanity - committed during the Vietnam War and the overthrow of Chile's democratic government. 

Still, this essay's coverage may prove useful. It describes a putsch (not over there but in our homeland), instigated by a right-wing conspiracy, to create an Orwellian apparatus based on information technology. It notes - significantly - that the Bush administration attempted, five months before 9/11, to seize 1.25 million e-mail message logs from the Seattle IndyMedia website in April, 2000, during demonstrations against the Quebec City Summit Meeting. Federal agents could not get the logs; but, unfortunately, the Homeland Security Act has now removed legal barriers.

This essay, despite its length, may also provide unfamiliar yet valuable information for activists. For instance, while they may have heard of the egregious harms involving the FBI files and the COINTELPRO program,  it observes that modern information technology was actually first used as a weapon of mass repression in Nazi Germany. This technology helped kill millions of anti-fascists, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and handicapped people. Will those who ignore this history experience it as well?.

While the technology is backed by plans to organize millions of citizens and immigrants who will spy on their neighbors and by mass arrests aimed at getting people's names, fingerprints, photographs, addresses and employment, it is still at an early stage. Consequently, the essay uses the phrase, "incipient fascism," to classify the political conditions employing this technology today. It is not comparable to the bloody tyranny that rapidly destroyed constitutional liberties in Germany after Hindenburg and Hitler suspended free speech, free assembly, protection against unlawful searches and seizures, the right to privacy and the rule of law in 1933. On the other hand, our government is moving ahead at break-neck speed and politically independent Americans will suffer greatly unless they adopt an aggressive strategy aimed at disarming its weapons of mass repression. 

To see the essay, click on http://web.tampabay.rr.com/hschwend/. Then scroll down and click on Information Technology and Weapons of Mass Repression. You can download the essay in html format and duplicate it. (A file in Adobe pdf format will also be available.) The file is free. Recommend it to friends, colleagues or students but do not use it commercially. Keep in mind, however, that you may get indignant replies from some of the people who follow your recommendation. After reading the essay, they'll realize that Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, IRS, military intelligence, local police, airport security, employment agencies, private detectives and right wing think-tanks may be acquiring the email addresses of everyone who saw it. All just doing their job.
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