Nourishment for the weak and gullible — Homeland Security's vapid "domestic terror" musings

© 2021 Peter Free

 

28 January 2021

 

 

The biggest threat to the American public . . .

 

. . . is our everywhere-tentacled national security apparatus.

 

Yesterday, I addressed one example of this — the National Guard occupation of the District of Columbia.

 

Today's news provides another instance.

 

 

Here is what the scheming power-grabbers . . .

 

. . . at the Department of Homeland Security said yesterday:

 

 

The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a National Terrorism Advisory System . . . Bulletin due to a heightened threat environment across the United States, which DHS believes will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration.

 

Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.

 

Throughout 2020, Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) targeted individuals with opposing views engaged in First Amendment-protected, non-violent protest activity.

 

Long-standing racial and ethnic tension—including opposition to immigration—has driven DVE attacks, including a 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed 23 people.

 

DHS is concerned these same drivers to violence will remain through early 2021 and some DVEs may be emboldened by the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. to target elected officials and government facilities.

 

DHS remains concerned that Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs) inspired by foreign terrorist groups, who committed three attacks targeting government officials in 2020, remain a threat.

 

Threats of violence against critical infrastructure, including the electric, telecommunications and healthcare sectors, increased in 2020 with violent extremists citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 for their actions.

 

© 2021 National Terrorism Advisory System, Bulletin, Department of Homeland Security (27 January 2021)

 

 

Goebbels-like drool, indeed

 

Notice the Bulletin's lack of even rudimentary logic and minimally provided proof.

 

 

Lack of logic and proof

 

The Bulletin says that herds of what it alleges to be — "Domestic Violent Extremists" — "targeted" non-violent protesters this last summer.

 

I wrote about one such targeting, a non-violent Proud Boys demonstration, here.

 

During 2020's Black Lives Matter protests — did you seen any evidence that Domestic Violent Extremists were violent on a noticeably massive and organized scale?

 

On balance, most rational observers will agree that BLM (and its hangers-on) did more rabble-rousing — including encouraging noticeable amounts of physical violence, looting and multiple arsons — than their supposed Right Wing "violent extremist" opponents did.

 

And insofar as the Right Wing itself goes, even the Trumpian Capitol Riot fell noticeably short of constituting genuine "insurrection".

 

 

So, tell me

 

Where is the massive threat that DHS is concocting coming from?

 

 

Should we believe whatever labels Homeland Security . . .

 

. . . or any other Government agency, casually and self-interestedly slap on segments of our population?

 

 

Still more non-evidentiary bullshit . . .

 

. . . is packaged inside this same DHS bulletin.

 

The "violent extremist" label now casually having been applied, DHS wanders off into braindead La-La Land:

 

 

The violent extremists "could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence".

 

 

Sure boys, gals — and Woke Whatevers — I could stumble over a people-eating terrorist crocodile today, even though there are none where I live.

 

It's possible, for sure.

 

Maybe one fell off a zoo truck. Or plummeted from a plane from Australia to the United States.

 

You never know.

 

 

For hype and presumed credibility . . .

 

. . . and nicely fitting my Australian crocodile hypothetical — DHS drags in "foreign terrorists".

 

Its bulletin goes on to say that:

 

 

violent extremists could do something

 

and implies that

 

they will be inspired by "foreign terrorist groups".

 

 

This hallucinating DHS punch into thin air requires no evidence at all, not even by implication.

 

DHS just connects yet another label — Homegrown Violent Extremists — with "foreign terrorist groups" — simply by semantically connecting the two assertions:

 

 

"DHS remains concerned that Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs) inspired by foreign terrorist groups, who committed three attacks targeting government officials in 2020, remain a threat."

 

 

So now, we have the equivalent of . . .

 

. . . foreign terrorist groups (who allegedly did three bad things last year) encouraging obedient American Homegrown Violent Extremists to:

 

 

shove imaginary,

 

randomly selected,

 

people-eating crocodiles

 

off

 

equally imaginary trucks and airplanes —

 

into my and your backyards.

 

 

See how it's done?

 

Government spouts concocted stories, hypotheses and fairy tales — as if they are fact — and then watches us all scatter in fear, after we hand them our wallets and freedoms.

 

 

The moral? — The US national security apparatus exists only to . . .

 

. . . collect taxpayers' money and expand its voraciously leeching Military Industrial complex.

 

Facts, reality and rationality need not apply.

 

We, my friend, exist only to feed rampant Corporatism's greed.

 

Be skeptical.

 

Our neighbors are not, fundamentally, our enemies.

 

Corporatism and the portions of Government that it owns are.