October 1, 2008, was the first day of the coup against America. It is a stealth coup, a coup by brutal inches, but a real one nonetheless. President Bush has deployed a brigade -- which means three to four thousand warriors -- onto the streets of the United States of America. We do not know where they will be deployed. We do know that part of their mandate is `crowd control' -- specifically the kind of crowd control the US military uses on citizens of Iraq -- as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. We also know that their technology `module package' involves Tasers and rubber bullets. And we know that more than 300 people in the United States have died since 2001 as the result of being Tasered by law enforcement authorities. Finally, we know that their missions include subduing `unruly individuals.' That means, my dear fellow American, you and me.
This is exactly what it sounds like. One definition of a police state is when the leader seizes his own piece of the treasury with no oversight (sound familiar?). And another definition is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile, the border is hardening: a wall is being constructed to our South and concrete barriers and armed checkpoints are monitoring access to the North. You know about the hundreds of preemptive arrests in St Paul, the armed break-ins to private room, the dozens of journalists arrested, the sweeps of citizens who were sitting in the sun. You know about the eight fresh-scrubbed young Americans charged as `terrorists' under the Minnesota Patriot act. I learned only this week that there is little good footage of this brutality because police demanded the cameras of reporters or exposed their film. Some of the footage we have, showing random unprompted mass arrests, was buried in the ground by a protester so it could survive. The war has begun.
It started with the militarization of local police forces through Homeland Security money and personnel. Prior to this summer's conventions, $50 million was sent to both Denver and St. Paul, much of which was used to arm and train police to act against citizens. In St Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens' law enforcement agencies into contractors of a violent state that is directing assaults against US citizens.
Now a military brigade is being deployed -- perhaps illegally -- because the Bush administration has unilaterally decided to defy federal laws that have kept the military off our streets since 1807, almost since the birth of this nation. [Note: The John Warner Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 expanded the president's authority to deploy troops within the United States. This power was then substantially limited by a new provision in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. But Bush signaled, with a signing statement, that he would not recognize these new limitations.]
Why did the Founders want soldiers off our streets? They know firsthand how easily a standing army -- even one's own -- could terrorize civilians.
Based on history, who will be seen as `unruly' and in need of being `subdued'? Protesters, yes. But also possibly voters who argue about being purged from voting rolls. People who resist when they are trying to count disputed votes and are told to stop. Voter registrants.
The `fake patriotism' we are about to be bombarded with will call us unpatriotic for fearing these soldiers on our streets. See through this. Our military are indeed brave and overwhelmingly decent. And they can be prosecuted or worse for refusing to follow orders. You think it is certain that decent young men and women of the US Military will refuse to follow orders to hurt or intimidate US citizen, businesspeople and representatives? History -- and the Zimbardo experiments, and the trial balloon for this called Iraq -- taught us clearly that decent kids under duress and following strict orders can do any appalling thing whatsoever. Our men and women in uniform over there have followed many orders that are still giving them PTSD and nightmares at home.
AS A MATTER OF POLICY our soldiers have taken the wives of alleged `insurgents' -- many of them innocent citizens -- hostage, as a way to pressure their husbands to turn themselves in.
AS A MATTER OF POLICY our soldiers have carried out orders to threaten minors in custody with rape.
AS A MATTER OF POLICY they have carried out directives to strip civilians naked, sexually abuse them and torture them -- even to death. As a business-as-usual practice in Iraq they have covered up these civilians' deaths.
AS A MATTER OF POLICY they carry out orders to burst into the homes of terrified civilians without warrants.
AS A MATTER OF POLICY at the highest levels they have carried out orders to disseminate propaganda masked as journalism and arrest journalists, hold them without charges in abusive conditions. A handful of respected journalists are in U.S.-held prisons right now.
Oh, but you say, that is a battlefield; Iraq. I have news for you: according to the White House's definition of the `War on Terror', this is a battlefield. The globe is a battlefield, including the U.S. Your home, where the soldiers are now deploying. Voting booths -- a battleground. Protest marches -- a front line.
So consider: Your child. Your nakedness. Your home. Your wife or husband taken into custody. Your silence. Your fear. The war has come home. What magic do you think protects you because you are a U.S. citizen - especially if you are a newly-minted `homegrown terrorist', a newly-named `insurgent' or `traitor' or simply a dangerously outspoken `unruly individual'? Do you think that military units never take action against their own fellow civilians? Hello, America: Chinese soldiers round up at gunpoint Chinese parents protesting tainted milk; German soldiers arrested Germans in 1933; Italian soldiers obediently beat up Italian editors and journalists in 1920; Russian soldiers rape and brutalize compatriot Georgians.
Many questions but so little time once the boots hit the ground. Time in a democracy goes slow enough for deliberation. In a police state events speed up. Remember: the U.S. military reports to the Commander in Chief -- not to Congress. They are the Leader's army once deployed at home. If the U.S. is a battlefield does military law override civilian law? The President has said he can call anybody an `enemy combatant': can the Third Battalion seize U.S. citizens and keep them in military detention? What about interrogation? What rules apply?
This is all hypothetical talk in a democracy with a civilian police force. Well, now we have the guys with the ordnance.
If the Third Battalion is sent to the Washington Post newsroom to seize `inflammatory' or `classified' work threatening 'national security', and Leonard Downie (the executive editor) resists, can they Taser him? Detain him? If reporters take pictures of the altercation can the Third Battalion seize their film? Arrest them? If the President declares a state of emergency and Congress resists, does he send the Third Battalion into the halls of Congress? How loud will they be then? If history is an indicator -- this happened in 1920 in Italy and 1932 in Germany -- they will shut right up.
If you are a city council member and you try to organize resistance against the deployment of the Third Battalion in your town does that make you a terrorist? You are urging the `use of force' against the government, after all. If the military clashes in its practices with domestic police, who wins? Will it be a skirmish in a set of larger clashes? Trust me -- local police against federal military troops? Who do you think will win? And when they start to be sent into private homes to confiscate computers -- please don't get me started on what happens to women when military units intimately patrol civilians.
OK so the war has truly begun. It is a war against us. Here is what you must do.
Battle Plan Actions:
1: Wake up. Resist the temptation to yield to denial. This is exactly as bad as it sounds. Tell everyone you know. Understand that silence only endangers you.
2. Groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU are our army now. They are our leadership in the legal fight while we fight in the trenches. We need to at least quintuple their budgets IMMEDIATELY. They need to hire enough brigades of lawyers to get us out of prison and to fight these abuses. Fundraise for them and write them the biggest checks you can NOW.
3. Form yourselves into Democracy Commando teams of twenty to thirty citizens. I give you the technique in Give Me Liberty. You basically register your friends and set out tactically to support your U.S. representative and let the field office know what you have done so that your voice is as powerful as that of the special interests' and lobbyists.
4. Tell your representatives about the deployment. Your elected representatives do not know that U.S. military is being deployed at home. There has been almost no media coverage. Bombard your city council members, state representatives and Congress people to pass laws immediately to stop their operation on your streets and to disarm the Homeland-Security-corrupted police forces in your town.
5. Call on your U.S. representatives to overturn the Patriot Act and on your state representatives to do the same to any state Patriot Acts. Demand that city council members ban the use of Tasers, rubber bullets and preemptive arrest. Most urgently, demand that they refuse any additional Homeland Security money. Establish and publicize communities that are refusing Homeland Security money. This has to be as firm as sanctions against South Africa. It is entirely tainted, it is blood money and it is being used to wage war against citizens.
6. Fundraise for ads in your local media to alert people to the threat of Homeland Security money and military deployment. Write op-eds for your local media.
7. Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder) has written a powerful and carefully argued case for the trial for murder of George Bush. He asserts that any district attorney in the country from whose district a soldier has been killed in Iraq can bring charges. Call your DA and ask that he or she file charges against George Bush for murder.
8. Call on Republicans voters you know to alert them to the danger. Ask them to bombard their representatives with demands that they form a Patriots' Committee to break ranks with the regime that has now staged a coup. The Committee must let the attorneys know they will have a bloc of support on the Hill. Ask your Senators and Congressmen to reach out to disaffected CIA State Department and U.S. Military leaders to sign a new Declaration of Independence, a personal commitment to refuse to comply with a rogue government that has deployed U.S. forces at home and that supports the arrest, investigation and prosecution of the coup planners by the U.S. Attorneys that must step forward.
9. Write to military Web sites explaining that troops have been deployed in violation of posse comitatus -- which has been subverted. Ask family members to request that troops that have been deployed against America lay down their arms and refuse orders. Tell them this is a higher patriotism. Set up a set of funds where citizens -- especially major donors -- of both parties can set up escrow accounts to help military families with the legal prosecutions and other harassment that will follow.
10. Print out copies of the User's Guide to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights (see http://www.myamericaproject.org/ for the documents) and pass them out to everyone you see. While there, sign up with our new mission to witness the vote, to raise money for the lawyers, to organize real protest, to fight this war for liberty.
11. Remember that without liberty we are nothing. Remember that the Founders counted on us to act. Remember that courage is called for in times such as these.
Naomi Wolf is the author of Give Me Liberty, the sequel to her New York Times best-seller, The End of America.
