Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

[Ellen Z]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

The questions are: What can we do for them (not much) and what can we do to reduce the probability that there might be more of them in the future (quite a lot).

I'd like to hear ideas, from you and from everyone, on "what can we do to reduce the probability that there might be more of them in the future." "We" as in me personally, and also the larger "we," we as a country (and every "we" in between.)

My local paper ran a story today saying the bombers were able to build devices with easily available ingredients, following directions on the Internet. I find myself picturing the other young frustrated people out there who are thinking to themselves, "Hey, it's not so hard... I could do that too." I don't want to have this thought, but it recurs.

[radon]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

I'd like to hear ideas, from you and from everyone, on "what can we do to reduce the probability that there might be more of them in the future." "We" as in me personally, and also the larger "we," we as a country (and every "we" in between.)

My local paper ran a story today saying the bombers were able to build devices with easily available ingredients, following directions on the Internet. I find myself picturing the other young frustrated people out there who are thinking to themselves, "Hey, it's not so hard... I could do that too." I don't want to have this thought, but it recurs.

Banning everything that can be turned into a weapon doesn't work, not even in prison, and I'm sure few people are willing to tolerate such draconian measures. Or maybe they will, a 19 year old boy frightened them enough to shut down an entire city.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

... a 19 year old boy frightened them enough to shut down an entire city.

Not really. A ruthless, premeditated, deadly attack on a crowd shut down the city. That it was a 19 year old boy was secondary, and discovered after the fact.

[radon]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

Not really. A ruthless, premeditated, deadly attack on a crowd shut down the city. That it was a 19 year old boy was secondary, and discovered after the fact.

Indeed, more disturbing than the attack was the reaction to it.

[Master Shake]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

I'd like to hear ideas, from you and from everyone, on "what can we do to reduce the probability that there might be more of them in the future." "We" as in me personally, and also the larger "we," we as a country (and every "we" in between.)

My local paper ran a story today saying the bombers were able to build devices with easily available ingredients, following directions on the Internet. I find myself picturing the other young frustrated people out there who are thinking to themselves, "Hey, it's not so hard... I could do that too." I don't want to have this thought, but it recurs.

For starters, we can have a more restrictive immigration policy and acknowledge that a large percentage of Muslims don't assimilate well and get along with others.

[ST]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

Crowd funding for victims, bypassing charities:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...es-giving.html

[mikedev10]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

I'd like to hear ideas, from you and from everyone, on "what can we do to reduce the probability that there might be more of them in the future." "We" as in me personally, and also the larger "we," we as a country (and every "we" in between.)

My local paper ran a story today saying the bombers were able to build devices with easily available ingredients, following directions on the Internet. I find myself picturing the other young frustrated people out there who are thinking to themselves, "Hey, it's not so hard... I could do that too." I don't want to have this thought, but it recurs.

i'd highly recommend a couple of books by some ex-CIA:

http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Secon...words=blowback

http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Hubri...mperial+hubris

and urging for some politicians to make some (actual) change in foreign policy.

[c1ue]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

For starters, we can have a more restrictive immigration policy and acknowledge that a large percentage of Muslims don't assimilate well and get along with others.

Given that the younger brother arrived as a 2nd grader - I'm not sure where exactly the fault for 'failure to assimilate' comes from. It also seems quite clear that both brothers were hardly isolated Idaho secessionists; they had girlfriends, went to parties, etc etc.

On the other hand, the Islamophobia in the US is very real. Equally so are the ongoing deaths of innocent Muslims in other parts of the world.

I'm be very interested to see just what prompted their actions. Maybe what we can do to stop this type of behavior lies outside the US.

[shiny!]

Has Watertown Made Warrantless Searches the New Normal?

The news video in this article is quite troubling:

Has Watertown Made Warrantless Searches the New Normal?

Note that I don't care about the author's argument that this would never have happened in a wealthy, upscale neighborhood. I don't know if it would or it wouldn't.

I've been through something similar to this when I lived in Albuquerque. We were caretakers at a 6-acre storage facility, half devoted to storage lockers, half was a storage lot filled with campers, RVs and boats. We lived on site in a 16x70 manufactured home. A murder suspect was on the run; witnesses saw him jump the fence and enter our storage lot.

I first noticed SWAT police on the roofs of the storage locker buildings. Then I saw one walking in my little back yard. Then they knocked on our front door. The two officers explained that they were hunting for a man they believed had killed his girlfriend, and that witnesses had seen him enter our facility. They asked if we were OK and told us to stay inside. Then they returned an hour later and asked if they could search our home to reassure themselves that we weren't being held hostage. They didn't have a warrant.

My husband mentioned that we had weapons in the house, and was that going to be a problem. He said he didn't want them confiscated. The cops said they had no interest in the weapons. So we let them inside. They were extremely polite, looked in the closets and under the bed, and left, again telling us to stay inside.

A few hours later they knocked on our door to tell us they were leaving and it was OK to come outside. My husband went out with them. He noticed that a panel of skirting under our home had been moved, and pointed it out to the cop. They brought over a German Shepherd dog, opened up the skirting and let the dog sniff around under the house while on a leash.

The dog went ballistic! His handler swept a flashlight around but wouldn't go under the house himself. He didn't see anyone under there so they left. A short while later, my husband went on an errand. When he returned he saw that our backyard fence was bent down as if someone had climbed over it. A panel of skirting in the back yard, at the opposite end of the house from the first disturbed panel, was down. We called the police.

Turned out the guy had been hiding under our house for hours, right under our feet. The K-9 dog knew he was there, but its handler hadn't trusted his dog enough to do a thorough search. By the time the police came back the suspect was long gone. I don't know if they ever found him. All that police manpower let him slip right through their fingers.

* * * * *

I've thought about that day many times since Watertown. Would I allow police on a manhunt to go through my home again without a warrant? It would depend on where I live. In Texas, Arizona, or NM, probably "Yes". In Boston or Connecticut or some state where they could very well confiscate my weapons? "No".

If they show up at my door with guns pointed at me I will be very frightened and very angry. Will I leave if they order me to? I don't know. What guarantee would I have that I would be allowed to return to my home in a timely fashion? Or that my pets and possessions would be there when I returned? What would happen to my sick, elderly cats and to my dog if I wasn't allowed to return home quickly?

I just don't like giving away my personal power at gunpoint, regardless of who is holding the gun. My Jewish grandparents almost got swept up in the Holocaust. I have an innate fear and distrust of authorities who would point a gun at me and order me out of my home.

It's a very short, slippery slope from allowing police to search my home without a warrant while I'm present... to leaving at gunpoint and then returning... to leaving at gunpoint, being loaded on a truck or a train, and never returning home again...

Where do we draw the line?

[radon]

Re: Has Watertown Made Warrantless Searches the New Normal?

Would I allow police on a manhunt to go through my home again without a warrant?

Most of my neighbors wouldn't, and neither would I for that matter. Without the rule of law they are just a bunch of gun toting thugs, no better than the gangs, criminals, or terrorist they purport to protect against.

[LorenS]

Re: Has Watertown Made Warrantless Searches the New Normal?

Given that the younger brother arrived as a 2nd grader - I'm not sure where exactly the fault for 'failure to assimilate' comes from. It also seems quite clear that both brothers were hardly isolated Idaho secessionists; they had girlfriends, went to parties, etc etc.

Look at the family. Mom fled the country due to felony theft charges. Mom seems to be a fanatic. I'm not saying this stuff is conclusive by the way.

One key problem we have is that at every major negative event we get a plethora of snake oil salesmen trying to push their faulty solutions on us.

You are not being hard-hearted, or mean by telling a snake oil salesman to pound sand. Most politicians are snake oil salesmen. The good ideas have been turned into laws centuries ago. There really is not a whole lot of merit to 99.99% of all new laws.

[Master Shake]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

Given that the younger brother arrived as a 2nd grader - I'm not sure where exactly the fault for 'failure to assimilate' comes from. It also seems quite clear that both brothers were hardly isolated Idaho secessionists; they had girlfriends, went to parties, etc etc.

On the other hand, the Islamophobia in the US is very real. Equally so are the ongoing deaths of innocent Muslims in other parts of the world.

I'm be very interested to see just what prompted their actions. Maybe what we can do to stop this type of behavior lies outside the US.

"Islamophopbia" is a term coined by the multi-culti left to slander those who tell the truth about the teachings of the prophet Muhammad.

Agree on your blowback comments. However, even if one considers it chickens coming home to roost, that doesn't mean we open up all the windows and doors and invite them in.

Wish the Islamo fanatics were like "Idaho secessionists" (whatver they are or the Amish): people who want to be left alone.

[don]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

Paul Craig Roberts . . .

Until the George W. Bush Regime, I never thought that it could happen here. I could not imagine law professors and Department of Justice (sic) officials writing legal memos justifying, in the name of a hyped “war on terror,” the termination of civil rights for United States Citizens. We were the land of the free. The Constitution was our bedrock. Yet, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were easily taken away from the inattentive American people.

The Constitution did not protect native inhabitants and slaves who were not considered part of the American population, but the universal suppression in the US of non-whites’ rights produced in the end the civil rights movement that brought moral awareness of the wrongs and successfully hitched its cause to the founding documents of the country.

Where today is moral awareness as Washington bombs civilian populations around the globe? Where is the moral conscience of the the civil rights movement as the First Black President, the first member of the oppressed class to sit in the Oval Office, validates the Bush Regime’s assertion of the right of the unaccountable executive to ignore habeas corpus and due process? Not satisfied with this crime, Obama asserted the right of the executive branch to murder any citizen suspected, without proof being offered to a court, of undefined “support of terrorism.” Today all Americans have fewer rights than blacks had prior to the Civil Rights Act.

Anything, including a column critical of war and the police state, can be declared to be “in support of terrorism.” As the tyrant Bush put it: “You are with us, or you are against us.”

The print and TV media and many Internet sites got the message: Serve Washington’s agenda, and will you will prosper. Advertisers and the CIA will pump money into your coffers. Challenge us and you will be demonized and could face a military tribunal, indefinite detention, or assassination. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are being persecuted for telling the truth.

So far, Washington has convinced the public that Washington’s terror is mainly limited to Muslims, who are obligingly demonized by print, TV, and much of the Internet media. However, if Muslim American citizens lack civil liberty, so do all other American citizens. Those who are safe are those who ally with the tyrant and remain subservient.

To ally with the tyrant, a United States citizen must have no moral conscience, no sense of justice, no compassion for the innocent and dispossessed. These are the worst kind of Americans; yet, they are the only ones who can succeed in the present environment.

Every time I write a column that is the truth or the truth as I am able to discover it, instead of hawking the propaganda line, I move up on the list of those who are persona non grata in the Empire.

A writer can find himself demonized and declared a kook simply by reporting findings from distinguished scientists, high-rise architects, structural engineers, first responders, and an international collection of high government officials. Not too long ago a writer or reporter for the Huffington Post discovered to his surprise that Pat Buchanan and I disagreed with all the wars that had been launched to protect us from terrorism. He asked me for an interview, and I agreed.

An hour or so after the interview was posted on the Huffington Post, I received an emergency call or email. He had been criticized for interviewing me, “for giving you a forum when you are a 9/11 sceptic.” He was unsure that it was possible for a Reagan presidential appointee to be a 9/11 sceptic and asked if I was.

I replied that I had reported the findings of scientists, architects, engineers, and the public testimony of first responders, because I thought these were qualified people whose opinions at least ranked equally with the politicians on the 9/11 Commission and the talking heads on Fox “News” and CNN, none of whom could pass a high school test in the laws of physics, much less high-rise architecture and structural engineering.

The Huffington Post writer panicked. Instead of taking down the interview, he felt impelled to assure readers and his boss that he had been deceived. He wrote at the beginning and ending of the interview that he did not know he was interviewing someone about the Iraq War who had given ink to those conspiracy theorists who raised questions about the truthfulness of the US government. He wrote that my views on the wars should be disregarded, because I wrote that scientists, architects, engineers, and first responders provided evidence contrary to the government’s claims.

And there you have it.

The Huffington Post has far more readers than I do, and far more money. There is no limit on the ability of the Huffington Post to tell and sell the lies of the Agenda.

I can remember when I was a Wall Street Journal editor and columnist, a Business Week columnist, a Scripps Howard News Service columnist and appeared regularly in the major mainstream print media and even from time to time on TV talking head programs. Today, the editor or producer who gave me a forum would be fired instantly, and they all know it.

It is discouraging that after so many transparent lies and orchestrations--weapons of mass destruction, al-Qaeda connections, Iranian nukes--the majority of Americans still believe the government. Americans are even buying into the line that Syria is ruled by a brutal dictator whose overthrow justifies Washington’s alliance with its 9/11 enemy, al-Qaeda, in order to overthrow a secular ruler who constrains al-Qaeda.

Washington has come full circle. Its enemy is now its ally. Washington wasted trillions of dollars and countless lives in eleven years of war and constructed a domestic police state all in order to combat al Qaeda with whom Washington is now allied against the Syrian government.

The public’s response to the Boston Marathon Bombing is even more discouraging. Not even King George and his Redcoats could achieve what Homeland Security just pulled off--locking down 100 square miles of Boston and its suburbs with heavily armed troops tramping through citizens’ homes barking harsh orders, all justified by a hunt for one 19-year old suspect. It was the Third Reich’s Gestapo in operation right here in “freedom and democracy” America. Ron Paul is correct that the suspension of civil liberty is a greater threat than the bombing. Note the government’s euphemism for martial law--”shelter-in-place.”

Two brothers have been convicted in the media and by the Obama Regime, including the president’s own words, of a bombing without the public ever being presented with any evidence except anonymous unattributed reports and a film of the alleged brothers walking with backpacks, which were ubiquitous.

I am old enough to remember when it was impermissible for government and media to convict a person prior to the jury’s verdict. Americans once lived in a free country governed by the rule of law in which a person was innocent until proven guilty.

What was the reason or evidence for naming the brothers suspects? Was any reason given, or was the film of the two walking with backpacks simply shown over and over, hour after hour, day after day, with the media reporting that these are the suspects. In other words, was it beat into your brain that they were suspects because there they are in the film? If not, why was the same film shown repeatedly? Fox “News” was still showing the film on April 26, eleven days after the bombing and might still be showing it. Did you experience: “Here are the suspects. See them. They have backpacks. See. We know that they are suspects, because, see, there they are.”

When is the last time the media investigated anything? A good candidate for investigation is the post-bombing rampage the brothers allegedly went on, robbing a 7/11 store (later contradicted by local police), killing a campus policeman, shooting a transit cop, high-jacking a SUV and releasing the owner.

Why would terrorists seeking to escape in order to strike again call attention to themselves in such outlandish ways and release a car-jacked owner to alert the police of the tag number? If the brothers were willing to kill police with gunfire and innocents with bombs, why release the guy whose vehicle they stole so he could inform the police of the license plate and make the brothers’ capture easier? What is the evidence, other than “reports from authorities,” that these events occurred or had any more connection to the brothers than the falsely reported 7/11 robbery that local police disavowed? Why does the US media simply accept whatever government authorities say?

Where is the evidence of a first shoot-out and a second shoot-out? The second shoot- out consisted of the authorities bombarding a motionless youth bleeding from wounds in a boat with multiple volleys of stun grenades and then multiple gunshots. The unconscious 19 year old was unarmed and unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him. As he lies there, he is shot many times, including through the throat, and is on life support. But the very next day, according to the presstitute media, he is providing hand-written confessions.

Was the purpose of the reports of a murderous rampage to create fear among the population so that they would accept martial law and home invasions by armed troops ordering American citizens out of their homes with hands over their heads on the pretext that they might be harboring the Boston Marathon Bomber?

The videos of the street celebration in which Bostonians thank the police and of the two Boston families, if not scripted by actors, shows Americans who far from opposing the police state welcome it. A father says that he with his daughter in his arms was forced out of his home by troops pointing automatic rifles at their heads, but that he was thankful for the safety the police provided him by violating every civil right that the Constitution gave him. A woman says it was scary but that “the police are just doing their jobs.” Are Americans now so brainwashed that they attribute their safety to the presence of a Gestapo Police State?

Why have detention facilities been built? Why did Homeland Security purchase a billion or more rounds of ammunition? Why does Homeland Security have 2,700 tanks and a para-military force? Why aren’t these questions being investigated?

The US Constitution is the product of 900 years of human efforts to restrain brutal government and to make government subject to law. It only took Bush and Obama eleven years to get rid of it.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

[shiny!]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

Paul Craig Roberts . . .

Until the George W. Bush Regime, I never thought that it could happen here. I could not imagine law professors and Department of Justice (sic) officials writing legal memos justifying, in the name of a hyped “war on terror,” the termination of civil rights for United States Citizens. We were the land of the free. The Constitution was our bedrock. Yet, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were easily taken away from the inattentive American people.

The Constitution did not protect native inhabitants and slaves who were not considered part of the American population, but the universal suppression in the US of non-whites’ rights produced in the end the civil rights movement that brought moral awareness of the wrongs and successfully hitched its cause to the founding documents of the country.

Where today is moral awareness as Washington bombs civilian populations around the globe? Where is the moral conscience of the the civil rights movement as the First Black President, the first member of the oppressed class to sit in the Oval Office, validates the Bush Regime’s assertion of the right of the unaccountable executive to ignore habeas corpus and due process? Not satisfied with this crime, Obama asserted the right of the executive branch to murder any citizen suspected, without proof being offered to a court, of undefined “support of terrorism.” Today all Americans have fewer rights than blacks had prior to the Civil Rights Act.

Anything, including a column critical of war and the police state, can be declared to be “in support of terrorism.” As the tyrant Bush put it: “You are with us, or you are against us.”

The print and TV media and many Internet sites got the message: Serve Washington’s agenda, and will you will prosper. Advertisers and the CIA will pump money into your coffers. Challenge us and you will be demonized and could face a military tribunal, indefinite detention, or assassination. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are being persecuted for telling the truth.

So far, Washington has convinced the public that Washington’s terror is mainly limited to Muslims, who are obligingly demonized by print, TV, and much of the Internet media. However, if Muslim American citizens lack civil liberty, so do all other American citizens. Those who are safe are those who ally with the tyrant and remain subservient.

To ally with the tyrant, a United States citizen must have no moral conscience, no sense of justice, no compassion for the innocent and dispossessed. These are the worst kind of Americans; yet, they are the only ones who can succeed in the present environment.

Every time I write a column that is the truth or the truth as I am able to discover it, instead of hawking the propaganda line, I move up on the list of those who are persona non grata in the Empire.

A writer can find himself demonized and declared a kook simply by reporting findings from distinguished scientists, high-rise architects, structural engineers, first responders, and an international collection of high government officials. Not too long ago a writer or reporter for the Huffington Post discovered to his surprise that Pat Buchanan and I disagreed with all the wars that had been launched to protect us from terrorism. He asked me for an interview, and I agreed.

An hour or so after the interview was posted on the Huffington Post, I received an emergency call or email. He had been criticized for interviewing me, “for giving you a forum when you are a 9/11 sceptic.” He was unsure that it was possible for a Reagan presidential appointee to be a 9/11 sceptic and asked if I was.

I replied that I had reported the findings of scientists, architects, engineers, and the public testimony of first responders, because I thought these were qualified people whose opinions at least ranked equally with the politicians on the 9/11 Commission and the talking heads on Fox “News” and CNN, none of whom could pass a high school test in the laws of physics, much less high-rise architecture and structural engineering.

The Huffington Post writer panicked. Instead of taking down the interview, he felt impelled to assure readers and his boss that he had been deceived. He wrote at the beginning and ending of the interview that he did not know he was interviewing someone about the Iraq War who had given ink to those conspiracy theorists who raised questions about the truthfulness of the US government. He wrote that my views on the wars should be disregarded, because I wrote that scientists, architects, engineers, and first responders provided evidence contrary to the government’s claims.

And there you have it.

The Huffington Post has far more readers than I do, and far more money. There is no limit on the ability of the Huffington Post to tell and sell the lies of the Agenda.

I can remember when I was a Wall Street Journal editor and columnist, a Business Week columnist, a Scripps Howard News Service columnist and appeared regularly in the major mainstream print media and even from time to time on TV talking head programs. Today, the editor or producer who gave me a forum would be fired instantly, and they all know it.

It is discouraging that after so many transparent lies and orchestrations--weapons of mass destruction, al-Qaeda connections, Iranian nukes--the majority of Americans still believe the government. Americans are even buying into the line that Syria is ruled by a brutal dictator whose overthrow justifies Washington’s alliance with its 9/11 enemy, al-Qaeda, in order to overthrow a secular ruler who constrains al-Qaeda.

Washington has come full circle. Its enemy is now its ally. Washington wasted trillions of dollars and countless lives in eleven years of war and constructed a domestic police state all in order to combat al Qaeda with whom Washington is now allied against the Syrian government.

The public’s response to the Boston Marathon Bombing is even more discouraging. Not even King George and his Redcoats could achieve what Homeland Security just pulled off--locking down 100 square miles of Boston and its suburbs with heavily armed troops tramping through citizens’ homes barking harsh orders, all justified by a hunt for one 19-year old suspect. It was the Third Reich’s Gestapo in operation right here in “freedom and democracy” America. Ron Paul is correct that the suspension of civil liberty is a greater threat than the bombing. Note the government’s euphemism for martial law--”shelter-in-place.”

Two brothers have been convicted in the media and by the Obama Regime, including the president’s own words, of a bombing without the public ever being presented with any evidence except anonymous unattributed reports and a film of the alleged brothers walking with backpacks, which were ubiquitous.

I am old enough to remember when it was impermissible for government and media to convict a person prior to the jury’s verdict. Americans once lived in a free country governed by the rule of law in which a person was innocent until proven guilty.

What was the reason or evidence for naming the brothers suspects? Was any reason given, or was the film of the two walking with backpacks simply shown over and over, hour after hour, day after day, with the media reporting that these are the suspects. In other words, was it beat into your brain that they were suspects because there they are in the film? If not, why was the same film shown repeatedly? Fox “News” was still showing the film on April 26, eleven days after the bombing and might still be showing it. Did you experience: “Here are the suspects. See them. They have backpacks. See. We know that they are suspects, because, see, there they are.”

When is the last time the media investigated anything? A good candidate for investigation is the post-bombing rampage the brothers allegedly went on, robbing a 7/11 store (later contradicted by local police), killing a campus policeman, shooting a transit cop, high-jacking a SUV and releasing the owner.

Why would terrorists seeking to escape in order to strike again call attention to themselves in such outlandish ways and release a car-jacked owner to alert the police of the tag number? If the brothers were willing to kill police with gunfire and innocents with bombs, why release the guy whose vehicle they stole so he could inform the police of the license plate and make the brothers’ capture easier? What is the evidence, other than “reports from authorities,” that these events occurred or had any more connection to the brothers than the falsely reported 7/11 robbery that local police disavowed? Why does the US media simply accept whatever government authorities say?

Where is the evidence of a first shoot-out and a second shoot-out? The second shoot- out consisted of the authorities bombarding a motionless youth bleeding from wounds in a boat with multiple volleys of stun grenades and then multiple gunshots. The unconscious 19 year old was unarmed and unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him. As he lies there, he is shot many times, including through the throat, and is on life support. But the very next day, according to the presstitute media, he is providing hand-written confessions.

Was the purpose of the reports of a murderous rampage to create fear among the population so that they would accept martial law and home invasions by armed troops ordering American citizens out of their homes with hands over their heads on the pretext that they might be harboring the Boston Marathon Bomber?

The videos of the street celebration in which Bostonians thank the police and of the two Boston families, if not scripted by actors, shows Americans who far from opposing the police state welcome it. A father says that he with his daughter in his arms was forced out of his home by troops pointing automatic rifles at their heads, but that he was thankful for the safety the police provided him by violating every civil right that the Constitution gave him. A woman says it was scary but that “the police are just doing their jobs.” Are Americans now so brainwashed that they attribute their safety to the presence of a Gestapo Police State?

Why have detention facilities been built? Why did Homeland Security purchase a billion or more rounds of ammunition? Why does Homeland Security have 2,700 tanks and a para-military force? Why aren’t these questions being investigated?

The US Constitution is the product of 900 years of human efforts to restrain brutal government and to make government subject to law. It only took Bush and Obama eleven years to get rid of it.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

+1. Unfortunately he will be pilloried for even suggesting that we are witnessing propaganda theater designed to get us to willingly support the theft of our civil rights.

Each of us has a threshold of what we can accept of reality. Beyond that line we cling to illusions, hopes, faith, whatever it takes to get us through the day without facing truths too painful to contemplate. We cling to our denial, and woe to the kid who cries out that the Emperor has no clothes. He's ridiculed, belittled, called a conspiracy theorist, a truther, a nut job. Anybody who thinks he might have a point has to think it in the private confines of their own mind, lest he or she be also ridiculed. People are vicious when their comfort zone of denial is challenged, and nobody wants to be ostracized.

Question any of the accepted, politically correct, government-stamp-of-approval stories about Waco and the Branch Davidians, Oklahoma City, 9/11, Aurora CO, Sandy Hook, and suddenly you risk all the credibility and reputation you've spent a lifetime building. Bush said it: They're either with us or against us.

All my life I've read history and wondered why people let their governments commit such atrocities. Why did the Germans allow the Holocaust to happen? Why did the Russians and the Chinese allow the Communists to strip them of all their civil rights? And now I know. They weren't being forced agains their will. Most of them actually believed it was the right way to act, the right thing to do.

That's what good propaganda does.

[don]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

That's what good propaganda does.

and fear, Shiny, and fear . . .

(just think how complacent Americans would be if a tiny sliver of the critical intelligencia were held in Homeland Security detention centers, as happened in Germany immediately after the Reichstag fire)