Is Gottheimer pushing Northern Ireland-style “troubles” on America?
/By Rubashov
Once upon a time, Joe Cryan would have told you all about it. His father certainly could. A population facing long-term economic decline, courtesy of the empire-building schemes of global imperialists.
Instead of addressing the economic problems, the government labels them “terrorists” and ratchets up the use of authoritarian surveillance measures. They make it illegal to peaceably assemble and to protest. Eventually, they start to arrest and detain – and set up political wings in their prisons.
“The Troubles” plagued Northern Ireland for more than thirty years. What began as government’s over-reaction to what was essentially an economic and civil rights protest movement ended with a power-sharing agreement. How could it not have? It was a matter of demographics. Whether we’re discussing a substantial minority, a plurality, or maybe even an essential majority – no government can jail that many people for long.
But along the way, politicians corrupted the use of law enforcement for political ends. They made frequent use of the show trial. Falsely accusing people to fit their narrative and to reinforce their bigotry.
If you fit the image of the “enemy” in their narrative – pale-skinned, of the wrong ethnicity, wrong religion, wrong economic class, wrong area, wrong education, wrong dialect, wrong politics, wrong cultural allegiances – you were in danger. Just ask the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, or the Maguire Seven. Just ask them what it was like to check those “wrong” boxes during “The Troubles”?
“That man… ordered that these people be used as scapegoats by a nation that was baying for blood…
” (Gareth Peirce)
Like they are today.
In a recent missive sent to local elected officials, Congressman Josh Gottheimer issued words that sound as if they were plucked from a British government statement of the 1970s:
“I believe that we can all agree that providing law enforcement and the intelligence community with all the tools necessary to prosecute, financially counter, and defeat these groups is of the utmost importance to keep our shared constituents safe.”
“All the tools necessary”. With such words the British government did away with due process and the rule of law.
Politicians like Josh Gottheimer have started down a dangerous, undemocratic, deeply illiberal path. They seek to shore up their own weak political positions by criminalizing the political positions of others.
During the last campaign, we watched as a panicky Gottheimer made false accusations against private citizens who supported his political opponent, accusing them of the high crime of “domestic terrorism”. But nobody was ever charged with a crime of any kind. Totally unfounded. Undeterred, now he is expanding the accusation of “domestic terrorism” to include large swathes of his own constituency.
In the same missive, Gottheimer attempts to rally his audience with this time worn appeal to war: “Extremists (as in people who think the “wrong” thoughts) present a clear and present danger to New Jersey families.”
He claims there was a “sharp rise in domestic terror and violent extremism both here in New Jersey and nationwide” and, for this reason, he is working to expand the PATRIOT Act to refocus its broad powers from enemies abroad to enemies within. Not content with a forever war overseas, Gottheimer is looking to create a forever war within the United States. America’s version of “The Troubles.”
Politicians use war to seduce entire societies. War makes it easy to lie and create fictions that the public believes. That great man of the Left, author and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, titled his book on the subject: “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” In the arid landscape that Josh Gottheimer appears to inhabit, this certainly seems the case.
“Someone has finely said that ‘truth is the first casualty in war’; and never was a greater untruth spoken than that war is waged for the protection of women and homes.
”
Ethel Annakin Snowdon
Human Rights campaigner
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