Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part I: Militarizing the Police
by William Norman Grigg

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them.

~ Garet Garrett, The Revolution Was (1938)

The seamless integration of the military and law enforcement into a single "Internal Security Force" is the defining characteristic of a fully realized police state. Once this fusion is accomplished, the question becomes not "whether" a police state exists, but rather how acute its institutional violence against the subject population will become.

That condition now exists in the country that still calls itself – without any apparent irony – the United States of America.

Much alarm has been raised over the admittedly alarming news that beginning October 1, the U.S. Army's Northern Command will deploy a specialized, combat-tested unit as an "on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."

This "dwell-time" domestic deployment of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team will permit its soldiers to "use some of the [skills] they acquired in the war zone" to deal with "civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack."

In the context of our descent into rank imperial corruption, this small but significant development could be seen by some as the moment our rulers crossed the Rubicon. But that metaphorical boundary has been in our rear-view mirror for quite some time. Admittedly, there is something quite ominous about the news that "homeland tours" are expected to become a routine part of the rotation of soldiers tasked to carry out missions for those who command Washington's Empire.

The Homeland Security apparatus is a recombinant organism, engineered from multiple strands of institutional authoritarianism.

The process began in earnest in the late 1960s with the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration; the chimera has grown in power and malignancy because of the generation-long, trillion-dollar exercise in murderous cynicism called the "War on Drugs."

Indeed, it was in the context of this "war" that exceptions began to be carved out of the Posse Comitatus Act, which was intended to prevent the fusion of military and law enforcement functions within the United States. The cultivation of a huge population of official informants added another critical element to the metastasizing organism of official tyranny.

The Drug War likewise introduced Americans to the variety of official larceny called "civil asset forfeiture," through which police and Sheriff's departments nation-wide were turned into roving bands of officially protected highway robbers. The corruption of local law enforcement into federal welfare whores was an indispensable step toward the synthesis of a distinctly American police state.

Although we're constantly told that "everything changed" on September 11, the actual impact of The Day That (Supposedly) Changed Everything was to add a highly potent nutrient into the growth medium in which the Beast was already flourishing. This merely accelerated a process that was already well advanced.

Consider, as just one illustration, a series of Presidential Decision Directives, issued by Bill Clinton in his second term, that deal with the integration of the military with civilian law enforcement to deal with terrorist incidents involving Weapons of Mass Destruction or catastrophic natural disasters.

Apart from a few hidebound constitutionalists and easily-maligned Y2K "alarmists," nobody objected to this new intimacy between the military and civilian police. Then again, nobody had become concerned over the proliferation of military-trained SWAT and tactical teams, or the creation, in 1995, of the Pentagon's Law Enforcement Support Organization (LESO), through which police and Sheriff's departments could receive military hardware of any kind they desired at concessionary prices, "as if they were a DoD [Department of Defense] organization," in the words of the program's official pitchman.

The results of this ... well, call it a "guided evolution" of the law enforcement system, were entirely predictable.

"I served in the U.S. military and after I got out I ended up becoming a cop in 2002," recalls Bill, who was Battalion Soldier of the Year in 1999 and "Top Gun" in his police academy class. Bill shared his experiences in reaction to a podcast I recently did with Lew Rockwell examining the emergence of America's unitary, militarized Homeland Security state.

At the time he joined the force, many of the veterans "were old school, having started in law enforcement before I was born. They were tough but fair. They treated people with respect."

However, the "old school" officers "were forced out of the department [and it] took on a military feel," Bill continues. "You were expected to take [a] `just follow orders and obey the [department administration attitude], no matter what, regardless if it was constitutional or not. The amount of force used during arrests went through the roof."

This militarized mindset – the notion that the job of police was to compel "civilians" to submit to state authority – had a tangible impact in terms of the promiscuous use of the "non-lethal" Taser weapon.

"When I first started we had a couple M26 Tasers of we needed them, but most people either left them at the PD or in their patrol cars," Bill relates. They were useful in a handful of instances involving armed, deranged people, and when used in those circumstances "they do save lives." However, once the Taser was in use, police started to use them as instruments of "pain compliance": "Anytime anyone did anything that was not compliant, out came the Taser."

"The tactics the SWAT team was using were also becoming more like the military," Bill laments. "We even got a military Humvee. We were now wearing BDUs and carrying fully automatic machine guns and wearing the same body armor as soldiers were in Iraq. All of our 870 Remington shotguns were removed from the patrol cars and replaced with full-automatic H&K-made G36 machine guns – to the protest of all the patrol officers, mind you. If anyone spoke out they were `dealt with.' In the course of 3 years they went through over 50 patrol officers. And this is a department with only about 47 officers total."

While military hardware was being forced on recalcitrant officers, those willing to carry out their assigned roles were being used to disarm civilians as the opportunity presented itself:

"People were having their weapons confiscated for `safe keeping' during traffic stops. [My home state] is a rural state that relies heavily on hunting for income. Everyone has a gun here. Even my 88-year-old grandma carries one in her purse (yes, she has a CC permit). So to take someone's guns you had better have a damn good reason, not just because they have a gun in their car and it's after 9 PM."

After witnessing this long train of official abuses, "many of us spoke out." Those who did so "were then run through the cleaners." Bill recounts an effort by the department administration to extort perjured testimony from him against a shift Sergeant who had condemned the department's corruption. Those who spoke out against corruption – which included prosecutors and judges – "were either fired unlawfully or quit."

In August 2007, after five and a half years on the force, Bill finally reached his frustration threshold and quit.

The sinkhole of dictatorial abuse and Sicilian corruption described by Bill is a small community in South Dakota – that haven of sober Midwestern rectitude whose citizens aren't afflicted with a state income tax. If it's this bad in the green wood, what's it like in the dry? Well, according to Bill, "these abuses do, sadly, happen in almost every town in America."

The process Bill describes is a peculiar type of alembic, distilling the worst elements from a recruiting pool to serve in local police forces. Rather than retaining people of character and principle, the process selects for the officious, the self-satisfied, the opportunistic, and especially for those fixated on power.

Martin, who likewise shared his experience in reaction to the Lew Rockwell podcast, is a former Marine. As he was processed out of the Corps he was pitched by a recruiter for the LAPD. Although he had no interest in the job, he was interested – and more than a bit alarmed – by what he learned about the ease with which former military personnel can become "civilian" police, and the eagerness of the LAPD to absorb military veterans into its ranks.

Recruiters "told us how they'd worked with command elements so that a Marine could go through LAPD academy while still in the service – meaning a seamless transition to police work from military life," Martin reports. Probably the "scariest" element of military recruitment, Martin says, is that "for basic officer positions a series of mental testing and psychological testing was not necessary. It is feasible for a Marine to get back to the states from a deployment to Iraq, get out of the military, and then start patrolling the streets of LA in a matter of a few months."

"Police work is the easiest and most lucrative thing for a former Marine or military person to transfer to, especially us infantry kids who received no real job training while in the military," Martin concludes. "To us police work is the closest civilian equivalent of the patrolling that we did in Iraq. I think it is safe to assume that the more `grunts' we make and give combat experience the more militarized our police departments will become."

Running through this entire story we can find a microscopically thin thread of hope in the reluctance of at least some military and police personnel to serve the Regime's apparatus of repression. But the generational trends Bill describes will only grow worse as a law enforcement assimilates veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have on the mindset of tomorrow's police recruits.

In his fascinating Iraq war account Generation Kill, Evan Wright describes his experiences as a reporter embedded in one of the first Marine units to invade Iraq in 2003. One lieutenant, describing the "Gen X" and "Gen Y" youngsters fighting in Iraq, observed that during World War II, when the Marines hit the beaches in the Pacific campaign, "a surprisingly high percentage of them didn't fire their weapons, even when faced with direct enemy contact. Not these guys. Did you see what they did to that town? They f*****g destroyed it. These guys have no problem with killing."

No problem with killing.

Our sin nature notwithstanding, any typical human being has exceptionally strong inhibitions where taking another life is concerned. This internal restraint can be subverted by a process of self-seduction in the service of some illicit design; it can be undermined by severe emotional or psychological trauma. For those in the military, it is nullified through patient, deliberate indoctrination – and even then, the psychological impediment to homicide still re-asserts itself for many in the military.

But "Generation Kill" includes more than a few young men produced by a deeply nihilistic popular culture who have exceptionally few compunctions about killing. When they are recruited into law enforcement, they will retain both the mindset and muscle-memory of trained, remorseless killers.


October 6, 2008

this guy is interesting and colorful.

Ward Churchill even favors quoting him.LOL



William Norman Grigg
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William Norman Grigg
Born February 4, 1963 (1963-02-04) (age 45)
Burley, Idaho
Residence Payette, Idaho
Other names "Blarney con Carne"[1]
"Cuchulain Cuauhtemoc"
Occupation Editor, author
Religious beliefs Mormon (–2003)
Christian (2003–present)
Spouse(s) Korrin Weeks Grigg
William Norman Grigg (February 4, 1963 – ) is a writer of Mexican and Irish descent. He was a senior editor of The New American magazine and has authored several books from a Constitutionalist perspective.

Contents [hide]
1 John Birch Society
2 Welch Foundation
3 Other activities
4 Books
5 References
6 External links



[edit] John Birch Society
Born in Burley, Idaho on February 4, 1963, Grigg graduated Utah State University, majoring in political science.[2] He served as Provo Daily Herald columnist and Washington journalist before "seeing the light"[3] and starting work in 1993 as a correspondent, researcher, and senior editor for The New American, the official biweekly magazine of the John Birch Society (JBS). Based at the JBS's Appleton, Wisconsin, office, Grigg covered United Nations summits and conferences from 1994 to 2001, and wrote Freedom on the Altar (1995), a study of UN family policy.[2]

Associate Kevin Bearly, a minister and former police officer, conducted JBS summer youth camps in the 1990s at which Grigg and others promoted conservative causes.[1] Grigg has also spoken frequently on conspiracies and Clinton impeachment in Las Vegas,[4][5] Colorado Springs, and Salt Lake City. Grigg was associate director for Activate Congress To Improve Our Nation (ACTION), a committee incorporated by JBS to promote the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, with chapters in 50 states.[6][7]

In 2005, Grigg called for the resignation of the JBS president and CEO, G. Vance Smith, who had promoted two sons to leadership positions; Smith was narrowly deposed in a September 2005 Board of Incorporators vote. The new CEO, Arthur R. Thompson, and other leaders initiated a staff blog to which Grigg contributed heavily.

Grigg's writing reflects views heavily influenced by Constitutionalism, libertarianism, and anti-communism; Ward Churchill favorably quoted Grigg's observation that totalitarianism is defined by abundance and unintelligibility of laws.[8] While Grigg's polemical style in print and blogs has been termed "verbal pugilism",[citation needed] The New American uses a modified AP Stylebook, avoiding overuse of emotional or satirical terms.[citation needed] Grigg is also younger than the other senior JBS officials. Grigg's articles as edited and accepted for publication by The New American have been regarded as less emotionally charged than those he has submitted to other publications; he has written for LewRockwell.com since June 2004, and has contributed increasingly to The American Conservative.[citation needed]

The new JBS leadership launched the U.S. immigration issue as a major campaign in 2005. Grigg, of Mexican and Irish descent,[1] had often in JBS publications called for controls on immigration. His New American article "Revolution in America", a study of immigration problems and issues, was reprinted for its "current and incisive" rhetorical qualities by a McGraw-Hill college text.[2] Grigg has promoted the concept that "white Leninists" desired to send "millions of Mexicans across the border with the idea of having each kill 10 Americans".[1]

But by 2006 Grigg had decided that the immigration issue had been overplayed by the Republican Party as a driving cause to keep big-government, pro-war Republicans in control of the U.S. Congress. He argued that an attack on personal liberties by the George W. Bush administration and the Republican Party was a more serious impediment to personal liberty, charging the administration with committing torture, detention without trial, warrantless surveillance, and wars of empire. Grigg considered a "wave" of media attention on immigration to be "nothing more than the swirl in the bowl after the chain has been pulled" on the Republican Party.[citation needed]

Grigg formed a personal blog, "Pro Libertate", in August 2006, saying that JBS leadership had deleted some of his posts from their blog, such as a June comparison of immigration debate to professional wrestling.[9] He stated that he was fired by JBS on October 3, 2006, officially for unstated reasons.[10]


[edit] Welch Foundation
The Robert W. Welch Foundation (Right Source Online), founded in 1997 by former California JBS members, adopted Grigg's Pro Libertate blog and made him a weekly cohost (December 30, 2005 – May 4, 2007) on the nationally syndicated afternoon radio show "The Right Source" with Kevin Shannon (Bearly's pseudonym). It also launched the Pro Libertate e-zine, where Grigg brought in writers such as James Bovard and fellow LewRockwell.com columnist Scott Horton. It commissioned Grigg's 2007 book alleging Bush and Clinton attacks on liberty, Liberty In Eclipse.


[edit] Other activities
Grigg has recorded the radio spot "A Liberty Minute" weekdays since February 19, 2007, which, since July 2, has used the tagline, "Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free" (Galatians 5:1).

Grigg is also a studio musician[1] who served as lead guitarist in the Wisconsin band "Slick Willie and the Calzones" until his 2005 move to Idaho. The band's 2001 CD, Green and Gold, featured rock, country, and jazz homages to the Green Bay Packers, such as the novelty song "Tailgate Polka".

Grigg and his wife Korrin have five children. He cited his wife's 2006 illness as a reason for suspending his secondary guitar activities.[citation needed]


[edit] Books
(1992) The Gospel of Revolt: Feminism Vs. the Family. Northwest Publishing Inc.. ISBN 1-880416-75-1.
(1995) Freedom on the Altar: The UN's Crusade Against God and Family. American Opinion Publishers. ISBN 0-9645679-0-3.
(2001) Global Gun Grab. John Birch Society. ISBN 1-881919-05-6.
(2004) America's Engineered Decline. John Birch Society. ISBN 1-881919-10-2.
(December 2007) Liberty In Eclipse: The Rise of the Homeland Security State. Welch Foundation.

[edit] References
^ a b c d e Rivenburg, Roy (July 1996). "Conservative camp roasts more than just weenies: Birch Society summer targets liberals, plots", Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ a b c Seyler, Dorothy U. Read, Reason, Write, 432-437.
^ Smith, Doug (1995-02-23). "Birch Society Is Alive, Well and to the Right of Newt Gingrich", Los Angeles Times, p. 5. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ Bard, Jean (1997-04-20). "About Town: Activities and events in Las Vegas", Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ Bard, Jean (1997-06-15). "About Town: Activities and events in Las Vegas", Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ Curtin, Dave (1998-03-23). "Impeachment group will state its case in Colo.", Denver Post, p. B4.
^ Heilprin, John (1998-04-29). "No Left Turn: John Birch Speaker Has the Right Stuff For Utah Audience", Salt Lake Tribune, p. A1. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.
^ Churchill, Ward. The Cointelpro Papers, xlvii, lxxxii.
^ Pro Libertate: Will Grigg's Birch Blog - The Lost Episodes
^ Pro Libertate: Tonight's Episode: The Tory Perspective, or There Goes my Severance (THIRD UPDATE; see comments section)

[edit] External links
Will Grigg's Liberty Minutes
Pro Libertate blog
Pro Libertate e-zine
Archives on LewRockwell.com
Notes on the Jerry Seinfeld Society
Bio at The John Birch Society
William Grigg at The American View Forum
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Norman_Grigg"
Categories: 1963 births | Living people | American Christians | American libertarians | Former Latter Day Saints | Mexican American writers | People from Idaho | John Birch Society
Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since June 2008
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Conservative camp roasts more than just weenies
Birch Society summer targets liberals, plots
Los Angeles Times/July 1996
By Roy Rivenburg
Angelus Oaks, Calif. - Here are some of the things that happen at John Birch summer youth Camp: People in Revolutionary War garb fire muskets into the evening sky; bumper stickers declare, "I love animals, they're delicious"; and men in weird hats burst into cabins in the dead of night.
And campers learn about secret world plots involving devil worshipers, cocaine-snorting Caribbean rulers, the United Nations and President Clinton.

Indeed, there are enough conspiracy theories here to make even Oliver Stone's head spin.

For 26 years, the John Birch Society has offered this weeklong summer program, held in various locations around the country, as an "antidote" to what it considers leftwing "disinformation" from public schools, the media and ocher institutions.

It's a mixture of politics and play that makes for one of the nation's most unusual camp experiences.

Under a canopy of ponderosas in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, 85 students have paid $175 each for seven days of canoeing, ping-pong, archery, volleyball and crash courses on topics such as New Age religions, illegal immigration and the Constitution.

They also must deal with the Night Patrol, a roving band of camp counselors wearing swords and strange headgear who storm into cabins at unpredictable hours.

The idea behind the raids is to instill resentment against excessive police power, says Kevin Bearly, a former Los Angeles police officer and minister who directs the camp.

Such lessons are built into nearly every aspect of the camp.

Classes walk students through the Birch Society's often-intriguing view of current events.

The world is like a stereogram painting, instructor Orlean Koehle says.

"When you stare at it long enough," she says, "the real picture begins to open up."

Birchers believe that a powerful group of "insiders" are manipulating global events in an effort to create a totalitarian, atheistic world government.

Everything is seen in this light.

Consider the environmental movement. On the surface, it appears to be a collection of "wonderful, benevolent people trying to help and save the Earth," Koehle tells the campers, who range in age from 13 to 20.

In reality, she says, it's a plot to unite humanity against a common enemy, pollution, and lay the groundwork for a world regime.

Koehle urges students to ignore doomsday hype about-such things as endangered species - extinction isn't necessarily bad, she says, noting that dinosaurs became oil deposits -- and depletion of the ozone layer, a point with which some mainstream scientists agree.

At a bonfire that evening, the junior Birchers take her message to heart.

"Styrofoam's not bad for the ozone, is it?" quips one boy as head counselor Arnold Marquardt, who in real life works as a fire chief, tosses several foam cups onto the pyre.

On other evenings, the campfire entertainment includes cameos by "Thomas Paine" and musket-toting Revolutionary War soldiers.

Any remaining illusion that Camp Birch is just another summer getaway quickly evaporates during a tour of the cabins. Each is an orgy of red-white-and-blue streamers, balloons, bumper stickers and other patriotic paraphernalia.

"I hate what Clinton and his gang of anti-gunner, gays and liberals are doing to America," says a T-shirt hanging from the ceiling in one boys' dorm. "No New-World Order" blares a decal in a girls' cabin.

Still, not everything is purely political.

Some students nod off, doodle or pass notes during class. Young Birchers in love stroll the grounds holding hands. And a frustrated boy tries to fend off rumors that his bellybutton is pierced.

Even campers who were wary of the program initially -- Carrie Warren signed up only after her parents "bribed" her with tickets to a concert -- seem to get caught up in the JBS spirit.

"The classes are really good," says Warren, 18, who plans to enroll at Pepperdine University this fall as an aspiring corporate lawyer. "They back up what they're saying with newspaper articles and facts."

There are also flashes of humor. The head of the United Nations is referred to as "Egyptian socialist Boutros Boutros By-Golly," and the leader of Haiti is portrayed as "a coke-snorting animist voodooist" who was reinstated by "U.S. military forces on an errand assigned to them by the United Nations."

A lot of what's taught is standard conservative rhetoric-but always with a sinister twist.

Mass transit, for instance, is a mistake not because freeways are more cost-effective, but because it will allow the government to control the movement of its citizens. By getting rid of cars, "they'll be able to restrict where you go," director Bearly says.

And illegal immigration is a mess not so much for the burden it puts on social programs, but because "white Leninists" intend to spark a U.S. revolution by manipulating recent arrivals. Marxists want to send "millions of Mexicans across the border with the idea of having each kill 10 Americans," says William Grigg, a studio musician tuned Birch magazine editor who describes himself as half-Mexican, half-Irish. "My friends call me Blarney con Carne," he says.

The United Nations is viewed as a cabal of communists, Satanists and allied dupes bent on ruling the world. Aiding and abetting their cause are scores of businessmen, media executives and politicians in the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.

The only hope for redemption, of course, is the John Birch Society. Founded in 1958 by candy baron Robert Welch, it has struggled in recent decades to regain its once-notable visibility and influence.

Welch, who died in 1985, named his organization after an Army intelligence officer who was killed by Chinese communists a week after World War II ended.

From an estimated 100,000 members in the early 1960s, the group slid to 80,000 during the 1970s and then nose-dived during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

The summer camps, which enroll about 1,000 teens each year at sites across the country, are part of the society's rebuilding plan.

Membership is open to all races and creeds, Bearly says, and "we don't promote militia movements in any way."

"We totally believe in making changes through the ballot box," he says.

Armed with facts and literature from their weeklong stay, campers can go back to their friends and classmates and argue for conservative causes, JBS officials hope.

"The good news," Grigg tells the group, "is that we will win. And I know all of you will have an important role in that victory."

http://www.rickross.com/reference/jbs/jbs1.html

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/01/pick-pockets-leg-breakers-and-bigots.html

it will take a strong stomach to read this article by Grigg, but in ther end, it is enlightening.

Wow, now that you've posted Griggs life history as told by Wikipedia, do you have anything to add about the article he wrote?

I think he did a pretty good job touching on what has happened in Law Enforcement over the last 20 years and where it's probably going to lead.

I'm actually fairly interested in part 2.

well, war, I thought I did that with my highlights.

I would add that democrats are salivating over the ramifications of getting into the White House with all these new toys to play with.

Who do you think the democrats would love to oppress and marginalize with all that power in their socialist claws?

Where do you think this will lead if democrats control employment by amassing an army of government workers voting left of center for self preservation and security and tenure to entitlements?
No need for martial law in that case.

the warnings against fascism are barking up the wrong tree, unless the tree itself is a graft on a different stump.

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them.

~ Garet Garrett, The Revolution Was (1938)

It's both sides working together. They play pass the party joint with the presidency.


How long have we had Bush's and Clintons in the forefront of things? The Dems version of the globalists slipped Obama in over Hitlery, because it's a slick move to fool more sheep into thinking that Obama is a shepherd and not the slaughterhouse manager.

The idea that McCain and Obama are different is just flat laughable. They are 2 wings on the same bird of prey.