Some consideration needed.
posted by The Vidiot @ 10:20 AM Permalink I don't know what to make of this story.What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”Now, if it's true, it seems like a waste of time. Vegans won't even eat dairy products. I'd hardly think of them as a threat of any kind. The story also pokes at those civil rights soft spots, making the reader angry, suspicious and nervous, all at once.
If it's not true, who's lying and why? I doubt very much the government gives vegans a second thought. The guy might work for the FBI and he's lying on their behalf. Or, the guy might just be a big, fat liar. If he's just a big, fat liar, then the whole thing is just to boost his level of self-importance. If the story is a plant by the FBI, either using this guy or not, well then, that's a little more interesting.
What purpose does that serve? To create an overall feeling of surveillance? I mean, I can't think of a better way to instill a little trepidation in the general public by letting them THINK that this sort of surveillance is going on. That way, a certain percentage of folks will be too afraid to even participate.
See, I don't think there's any actual surveillance going on so much as there is the suggestion that surveillance might be going on. I mean, if you THINK someone has a gun, that's enough to get you to act accordingly, no?
Then again, as usual, I could be full of crap.
Labels: propaganda, surveillance
1 Comments:
Ah, grasshopper, think of the untold glory that would grace His Majesty's Republican Guard if they were, at the last minute, suddenly able to arrest a group of these 'homegrown' terrorists during the convention, possibly when the POTUS was within 2,000 miles or so of the danger zone. It wouldn't matter if the terrorists were every bit as sophisticated, prepared, ready and able to swing into action as the Miami Six the government can't convict. It's the image of saying to the grubby little bastard Rethugs that their POTUS will indeed ferret out the nefarious types trying to destroy America by refusing to eat meat that can no longer be VOLUNTARILY checked for mad cow disease.
This is just more 'Big Brother' propaganda for fear/warmongering to hopefully once again stir the Rethug base for its usual doltish, uneducated, and willing ability to suspend belief visceral reaction that alerts all the other automatons to alternately swoon for the magic ass they kiss and leading lynch mobs to silence dissent.
Maybe McLame himself would don a codpiece and personally lead the raid that captures these awful Vegans, which everyone knows is an acronym for Very Evil Groups Avoiding Noxious Substances. How much more evil can you get than that?
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