The whole fucking country is getting scary. Today Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein are going to roll over for George Bush's latest torturing storm trooper. I'm so disgusted.

That dude is sharp. I wish the old right wing that was so up in arms over the use of military force in Waco would be half as concerned about this blatant and dangerous side-step of our nation's protections from military policing of civilian life. But I guess torching a nut-case who believed he could summon the powers of God to raise the dead and his flock of faith-based fools by a Democratic Administration is worse than a private militia running military operations in our country and through out the world in the name of Nationalism and Christianity is just fine. I swear, sometimes I have nightmares about spending my golden years in a Blackwater prison camp. Maybe I'm paranoid but even my somewhat limited knowledge of history is aware that this company is the worst development in recent years. It's every corrupt, power-mad politician or businessman's dream.

Today Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein are going to roll over for George Bush's latest torturing storm trooper. I'm so disgusted.

I'm not at all surprised that Diane Feinstein is rolling over. She often votes with the right wingers. For example, she was one of the few Dems who voted to outlaw flag burning.

This was a pretty good interview with Jeremy Scahill, but the Bill Moyer's interview was very good.

Anyway... the United States gets creepier and creepier every day..

When will we finally say, "Enough is enough" ?

This was a pretty good interview with Jeremy Scahill, but the Bill Moyer's interview was very good.

Yes, it was - good link, JoAnn.

When will we finally say, "Enough is enough" ?

We are trees falling in the forest - no one hears it when it is said, and I'm sure it is said hundreds of thousands of times every day all over this country. But look at the corporate media interviews with Eric Prince - he spouts his horseshit propaganda over and over again to pliant tools, including Charlie Rose. Then Bill-O and Rush get on the air and describe the people who are saying "enough is enough" as "far-left" and beltway pols feels totally safe ignoring and marginalizing the radical dismemberment of democracy.

feels totally safe ignoring and marginalizing the radical dismemberment of democracy.

Uhh...that should have read: ...feels totally safe ignoring the radical dismemberment of democracy and marginalizing people who are saying "enough is enough".

First of all, this is something that is rarely seen on television: a real journalist. Jeremy Scahill has obviously spent years investigating his story. We are more used to having a talking head interview another talking head with nothing but opinions being exchanged.

Secondly, this whole Blackwater, mercenary army thing is the most frightening development to come out of the right-wing campaign of privatization. We are letting them build, with our tax dollars, a mercenary army with no oversight. If you aren’t terrified by this you are not paying attention. We are transferring billions of U.S. tax dollars to these private institutions which in turn support right-wing politicians.

Can you post the Bill Moyer's interview?

heres part one i think. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10192007/watch.html

leftbanker, JoAnn's link takes to to the Moyer's site so that you can pull up pt. 1 and 2 of the interview. These segments are lengthy, so allow some time to watch. I haven't gotten all the way through yet.

As for Blackwater, many of the personnel are retired or otherwise ex-U. S. soldiers. They didn't have too far too travel to continue their soldiering career, and since the government/our tax dollars is supporting them, they can double dip in retirement! I suppose the govt. affiliation is there to keep this paramilitary group from becoming a rogue entity. Oops.

That this organization is getting off with a hand slap when they put our men and women in U.S. uniform in more peril is atrocious. It's bad enough that our administration has managed to fuck up the lives of our soldiers and Iraqis by staging this war, but that they'd turn a blind eye to Blackwater is a crime. A poster in the Powell secretary link said that higher ups should be tried and put away. Well, duh; our entire administration is culpable. The citizenry needds to take a stand.

Scahill was great, ready to go. He needs to get the word out on a larger scale.

Oh i didnt see it had already been posted. it was a good interview though. some scary stuff.

The scariest thing about Blackwater is that it really is like a partisan militia. In Germany in the 1930s, the government was too weak and the army was unreliable, so militias were often used against uprisings and attempted putsches. But the militias would only fight against their partisan enemies--the right against the left, and vice versa. Would Blackwater fight for Hillary Clinton?

Bush's people have read their Machiavelli, who says to go to war with your "own arms", not mercenaries. But maybe that's exactly what they're doing, when you think about it.

Another negative aspect about Blackwater is that our own U.S. military must now offer huge bonuses to retain qualified personnel so they don't jump ship to these new militias—so much for this whole privatization thing being more efficient.

I am definitely not a conspiracy theorist but what would keep these creeps from assassinating a pesky journalist?

I did see the Bill Moyer interview and I was asking if Norm could post it on his page. The more people in America who see this piece the better.

The more I see of this shit the more I favor regulation, and hate "Law and Order".

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Peasants with pitchforks alone? I'd like to stick a tuning fork through the hearts of Feinstein and Schumer, or torture them with my special custom-made pitch pipe. Maybe the NRA isn't such a bad idea...

Would Blackwater fight for Hillary Clinton?

Honestly, I think it would. Blackwater employees all take an oath to the Constitution. A little unusual, perhaps, but these guys really do see themselves as upholding the American constitutional order. All this talk of a coup at home is nonsense and is just muddying the waters, making it more difficult to seek out the truth about what contractors are doing abroad.