* Dan Bartlett: " So it's not necessarily a militarization of the border"
* atrios:
"So, Bush assures Fox that our little military mobilization at the border will just be temporary. I know what they're thinking at the White House. We can have a lovely little "fake war" at the border, one with all the cool uniforms, hummers, helicopters, etc... A war which is entirely safe. A war where there isn't really an enemy. And the president can safely visit that war, prance around in his codpiece, yell things out a bullhorn while sitting astride a massive hummer.
Ridiculous, but that's probably the plan."
7 comments:
Through the Overton window, one of Alex Jones' consistent claims is that military troops are being used regularly (in violation of posse comitatus) in 'exercise' after 'exercise' on domestic soil.
So you put a few thousand military troops on the border to 'assist' in performing police functions. What could be the harm in that?
Or the next time we do it? Or the time after that?
Military troops keeping peace in the streets? What's the problem? It's not like KBR's building mass detention facilities or... any... thing...
yeah - i agree don. and i think that was a large part of the problem in that bush/nagin/blanco meeting in nola - but my question was really about why he even mentioned it. he didnt need to say those words, and apparently they are talking points - cos bartlett said the same thing.... in normal circumstances, you'd expect them to not even mouth those words.
The more I see and think about what I've seen, the more certain I am there's something to this Overton window. Not long ago it was "border militarization? that's crazy talk".
Now he's under heavy fire from the right over, you guessed it, immigration. As you noted from Greenwald, the right's calling for impeachment over it.
Suddenly, the ground's fertile to plant the meme. "We're not going to militarize the border, the troops are only temporary aid, blah, blah." From crazy talk to something that can be denied reasonably, but is still noted in reasonable discussion. This at a time when the raving right is primed to jump on it and scream it from the trees. You had to have seen this guy's venomous rant already and that was posted before the speech.
The 'centre' of perception is shifted to the point where one of the national network news reports here just calmly discussed the possibility of NatGuard troops on the US/Canada border in a few years.
Did I mention Lockheed-Martin has been contracted to process Canada's '06 census? Where have we seen that name before?
None of this is reassuring.
Be glad Australia doesn't share a border with Bush's Amerika.
don - i havent got to that overton's window article yet... but yep, the way they mainstream outrageous ideas is frighteningly effective.
bummer to hear about lockheed. is there really a need for that??? holy shit. (and i hadnt realized that lynne cheney has a desk there)
yeah - lucky australia doesnt share a border - but as bush tells us repeatedly, oceans dont make us safe 'any more'
It's scary that they're mainlining radical thought so effectively.
It's at least as scary that this administration is on record as using PsyOps on their own people. Whatever ideology they spout, BushCo, PNAC and their enablers are only concerned with their own interests and anyone else is expendable.
There's an eerie push/pull dynamic to the recent shrillness in the right blogosphere that until now, lived and breathed talking points fed to them by the RNC and the WH. Is the right base pissed off at the PTB's, or being pissed off by them.
Scariest of all are the thoughts of directions the push/pull could be going. Best case is an angry base all keyed up for November. Worst case and anything in between I'm not even going to speculate on.
Re: the Overton Window
Let's see, there's the Mackinac Center article here, Trevino's Swords Crossed post here, Kossack diaries here and here, and finally posts from Digby and Tristero.
It all makes for interesting reading, and really puts the whole Repub approach into perspective.
thanks for the OW pieces. i had only read the ones at digby's place.
"There's an eerie push/pull dynamic to the recent shrillness"
there sure is. not just for the righties, either. the whole environment feels like its about to explode. i can't imagine it being pretty. there are a lot of potential leakers, and a lot of effort trying to hush leakers, and a lot of secrets and buried bodies everywhere.
the 'worst case' is indeed truly frightening. let's hope that everyone is so busy trying to keep half a step ahead that they havent been able to think two steps ahead...
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