Ferguson, Missouri now looks like a war zone.

The above picture is of police officers aiming automatic weapons at PEACEFUL protestors in the United States of America!

I have not blogged about this situation in Ferguson because it is already getting all kinds of coverage, but what I saw last night has compelled me to weigh in.

Here is a taste:  

Protests racked this St. Louis suburb for a fifth straight night Wednesday as anger flared anew over the police killing of an unarmed young black man. 

Armored personnel carriers and officers wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles greeted demonstrators. When the crowd ignored orders to disperse, officers unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets, witnesses said. 

Police sealed off the area that was the scene of vandalism and looting Sunday night. 

“We’ve done everything we can to demonstrate a remarkable amount of restraint,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said in an interview outside the command post. “If there was an easy way to fix this, we would have already solved the problem.” 

Officers had heard sporadic gunfire, he said. At least 10 people were arrested.

Of course the protests are in response to the shooting death of 18 year old Michael Brown at the hands of the police, which at least one witness has said was completely unprovoked.

This has caused an incredible outpouring of anger among Ferguson residents, who have had many troubling encounters with the police.

And the police are not doing themselves any favors as indicated by the fact that they arrested two reporters at a local McDonald's restaurant for filming them as they cleared the place out:

Reporters Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of The Huffington Post said on Twitter that police told them to stop recording the events, then took them into custody. 

Reilly tweeted that police asked him for his ID when he took a photo. He said he and Lowery were arrested for "not packing their bags quick enough." 

Lowery tweeted, "Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of."

If that were not bad enough the police were also videotaped firing tear gas at reporters from AlJazeera.

Now as a rule I am usually on the side of the police,  I am at heart a law and order kind of guy.

However what is happening right now in Ferguson, Missouri is very troubling on a number of levels, and it also speaks to the militarization of the police, and their aggressive attitudes while dealing with the public.

Especially the African America public. 

There are a number of ways that this whole things could have been better handled, but it appears that the police are not utilizing any of them.

Al Jazeera goes where the MSM fears to tread, reports that millions of Americans are being kept from voting.

Courtesy of Al Jazeera:

 The US Presidential race is being fought out most visibly in its "air war" - the barrage of TV ads concentrated in swing states, and the televised debates reaching tens of millions of viewers at once. But in the end, the outcome may well be determined by its trench warfare, a crucial component of which, for the GOP, consists in an intensively-fought effort to prevent as many Democrats as possible from voting. 

It's a throwback to a bygone era, when similar efforts throughout the North - stopping short of the blood-stained mass terror favoured in the South - were employed to suppress the votes of thousands, perhaps millions of naturalised working class voters. 

With roughly seven million voters effectively prevented from voting in 2008, according to the Co-operative Congressional Election Study, and perhaps five million more imperiled by new voter-suppression measures, according to another study in 2011, this should be a dominant campaign story. 

Instead, it's marginalised, partly because it can't be squeezed into the US media's sacred "both sides do it" frame, and partly because those most impacted are primarily poor, low-income, and/or young. In 2005, for example, figures showed that only 59 per cent of citizens in households earning $15,000 or less were registered, compared to 85 per cent in house' earning over $75,000. 

 It's also the case these would-be voters are much less likely to have driving licences, birth certificates, or any other sort of documentation required by the avalanche of voter-ID laws, being marketed to "protect the vote", so those figures are probably only going to get worse, and the US media is not going to help you understand how or why. 

Now I know that MSNBC HAS been reporting this, but I don't believe that many other news outlets have given it any coverage, and of course Fox News is doing everything they can to cover it up.

In fact our situation is so dire that UN affiliated election monitors have been requested by the State Department, which of course has freaked the Right Wing out and caused them to fear that they might get caught red handed suppressing the vote or outright stealing the election:

Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote appeared on Fox News on Monday claiming that the monitors’ presence was actually intended to prevent and discourage U.S. voters from exercising their rights. Fox’s Megyn Kelly readily agreed, stressing the left-leaning nature of the civil rights groups, seemingly unaware of the State Department’s role in inviting the monitors. It’s worth mentioning that True the Vote, itself a Tea Party group voter suppression effort, is currently under investigation for possible criminal conspiracy.

I cannot stress the importance of getting as many Democrats as possible to the polls, but also of making sure that these that we make sure that these naked attempts to destroy our democracy fail.

I am beyond being surprised by the depths that those on the Republican side of the aisle will sink to in order to retain power and am now at the stage where my opinion is, if it's a fight they want, then by the Gods it's a fight they will get!

The right to vote is a sacred honor in this country and we need to impress on every family member, friend, and acquaintance that we know, that if they want to retain that right they need to exercise that right, despite whatever obstacles are thrown in their path by those who want to take that right away from them.

The Teabaggers and what their scorched earth approach to politics portends for this country.

Courtesy of Aljazeera:

After its humble beginnings as an astroturf, Koch-Brothers-funded revival aimed at mobilising ill-informed, reactionary, mostly older white Americans against health care reform and other psychologically-constructed monsters under the bed, the Tea Party has become an malignant force that now holds the Republican Congressional Caucus - and with it the country - hostage. 

While the Stockholm Syndrome may not have quite set in yet among all Republicans, the tri-corner-hat crowd seems to behave much like the giant Brain Bug in the movie Starship Troopers, jamming a claw into the heads of their fellow GOPers and slowly sucking out cerebral tissue until only the brainless body remains. 

Most problematic, most of the Tea Partiers, private citizens and elected officials alike, seem to possess just slightly less understanding of the Federal budget or tax code of than say, Mater from Cars. Yet, these are the people in the driver's seat as the country heads for what might be Act II of the Great Recession, unless progressives, centrists, and others edified with high school civics adopt a new strategy to counter them.

And counter them we must, for they and their ilk are nothing new, but representative of a recurring and quite dangerous political strain that has always been with us since the dawn of civilization. Their undermining of the traditions, culture, and give-and-take necessary for any democracy to function has had destructive results on free societies in the past, and taken down a Republic or two.

From its inception, the Tea Party is the very definition of the type of revolutionary movement. Until Democrats, and their leader in the White House, realise they need to stop calling people like Paul Ryan "courageous" and "serious", and start fighting fire with fire, Michelle Bachmann and her creepy pinwheel eyes are going to continue to get their way at the expense of American values and the middle-class that once made this country great.

 The late, great historian Richard Hofstadter added further insight into just the type of "movement" we're dealing with, in his 1964 award-winning tome, "The Paranoid Style of American Politics". In it, he outlines the psychological origins of the type of crazed, Tea-bagger style of all-or-nothing dedication to an absolute end, when he wrote of their forebears: 

 "He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated - if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention." 

 In other words, any compromise, no matter how small, is seen as an act tantamount to treason, which is precisely why we need to stop engaging these tottering tea lovers, because they simply do not believe in the workings of democracy. 

Not really too much to add here except to say that between the Teabaggers and the Domininists trying to fuck up our country this may be one of the most divisive and important Presidential elections in America's history.  Yes I realize I said that same thing in 2008, and I said it because it was true, but I am convinced that what was true then remains true in 2012.

 Personally I long for an election that is simply an election, and NOT the potential harbinger to the end of the United States of America as we know it.

By the way in case you have convinced yourself that this is mere hyperbole on my part, let me remind you of a certain Presidential election in 2000, and how the repercussions from that are still resulting in death, financial collapses, and disharmony all over the world.

Are you prepared for spiritual warfare in the United States? Well perhaps you are not, but many others are more than ready.

Courtesy of Aljazeera:

Prior to 9/11, the Taliban government in Afghanistan did not register very much on American radar screens, with one notable exception: when it blew up two colossal images of the Buddha in Bamiyan province in early 2001. But destruction of treasured artifacts isn't just limited to the Taliban.

There's a right-wing politico-religious presence centred in the US, but with a global reach, engaging in similar practises, destroying religious and cultural artifacts as a key aspect of its ideology of "strategic level spiritual warfare" (SLSW).

Until recently a fringe evangelical movement, warned against as deviant, "spiritual warfare" is rapidly positioning itself within America's mainstream political right. It's well past time for political journalists to start covering what this movement is up to.

As an example, leaders have bragged online about the destruction of Native American religious artifacts, which their twisted ideology somehow sees as a liberating act, promoting "reconciliation" between estranged groups of people. Critics, however, see it as reflecting an eliminationist mindset, while traditional conservative evangelicals have denounced the ideology as un-biblical. Some even claim it is actually a form of pagan practice dressed up in Christian clothes, according such artifacts a spiritual power that the Bible itself denies. 

The ultimate goal is to replace secular democracy, both in America and around the world, with a Christian theocracy, an ideology known as "dominionism". The supposed purpose is to "purify" the world for Christ's return - again, strikingly similar to what the Taliban believe, but also significantly at odds with more common, long-standing Christian beliefs about the "end times", as well as the nature and purpose of prayer, and the roles of human and divine power. 

This is a VERY informative article which touches on many of the same frightening themes that fans of Leah Burton, and God's Own Party,  are probably already aware. The piece explores the New Apostolic Reformation, the Seven Mountains Mandate, the influence of Sarah Palin, and also lays out the three levels of Spiritual Warfare.

Ground level spiritual warfare is casting out demons from individuals. Occult level spiritual warfare is a confrontation with demons operating through witchcraft and esoteric philosophies (examples are Freemasonry and Tibetan Buddhism). Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare is the highest level, dealing with confrontation of territorial principalities that control entire communities, ethnic groups, religions, and nations.

Like I said the article is quite informative, however it is also a chilling read that might cause you one or two sleepless night.  So take care.