This past week saw AirAmerica radio host Randi Rhodes address H.R. 1955 twice on her popular daytime show. Once on Tuesday and again on Friday. The Friday segment features an interview with former CIA officer, Philip Giraldi. Giraldi has been very critical of the Neocons, astute in his observations about Sibel Edmonds, and on Monday published a blog at Huffingtonpost.com that cuts to the chase regarding the Bill. The Bill seeks to lay the foundation to criminalize thought;

"Language inserted in the act does partially define "homegrown terrorism" as "planning" or "threatening" to use force to promote a political objective, meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the terrorist label. The act also describes "violent radicalization" as the promotion of an "extremist belief system" without attempting to define "extremist."

Giraldi is not alone in his interpretation of the Bill. He is joined by Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, who actually READ the bill, and voted against it, along with a mix of 5 other Democrats and Republicans. In this video, Kucinich explains his vote (relevant segment begins at the 7:00 minute mark);

Continued below...

He says;

"...it was H.R. 1955? It probably should have been H.R. 1984. Because what they were doing... is they were trying to criminalize thought... Most members don't read this legislation... people don't read these Bills. You get, everday, a dozen Bills floating your way... some are a few pages, some are hundreds of pages, you have staff read 'em... and this came from a Democrat. This is a Democrat's Bill... and so, it comes from "your side", right? You don't read it... the Republicans are ready to pass anything like that... and so, people didn't read the Bill... and you look at the title, "Oh, yeah... we're against 'Homegrown Terrorism'..." ...people don't look at it... "Yeah, we're Patriots, we're for it..."

This is what we're faced with... so, when they come before you, to have to account for it {your vote} you see sometimes gymnastics, or balletics that are Olympian in their movement! But pathetic in their implications. And dangerous.

You haven't heard the last of this.

I had one of the most conservative Republicans in the House, Dana Rohrbacher, who voted against it, came up to me and he said, "You know, only a few of us voted against this." And I told him, well, I read, it looked pretty crazy, "Yeah!" he said, and he's starting to hear from people all over the country...

Isn't it interesting how the internet becomes a basis for information that comes to us and how often it is at odds with what we're hearing from official Washington.

And so the breakdown of trust is so powerful right now... the climate for impeachment is so rife for impeachment around the country, people want it, except in Washington."

See also Robert Weitzel's piece at OpEdNews.com;

“Political language has to consist largely of euphemisms . . . and sheer cloudy vagueness.”
- George Orwell -

H.R 1955: the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 recently passed by the House—a companion bill is in the Senate—is barely one sentence old before its Orwellian moment:

It begins, “AN ACT - To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes.”

Those whose pulse did not quicken at “other purposes” have probably not read George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language,” or they voted for the other George both times...

...A clue to future “other purposes” may lie in the Act’s parentage. The proud House “mother” of the Patriot Act’s evil twin is Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA), chair of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. Rep. Harmon has admitted to a long and productive relationship with the RAND Corporation, a California based think-tank with close ties to the military-industrial-intelligence complex. RAND’s 2005 study, “Trends in Terrorism,” contains a chapter titled, “Homegrown Terrorist Threats to the United States.”

Keep in mind that the RAND Corporation was set up in 1946 by Army Air Force General Henry “Hap” Arnold as “Project RAND” sponsored by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Keep in mind also that Donald Rumsfeld was its chairman from 1981 to 1986 and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s felonious former chief of staff, and Condoleezza Rice were trustees. Enough said!

RAND maintains that “homegrown terrorism” will not be the result of jihadist sleeper cells. Rather, it will result from anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who “challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism, charging that in the insatiable quest for growth and profit, the philosophy is serving to destroy the world’s ecology, indigenous cultures, and individual welfare.”

Further, RAND claims that anti-globalists and radical environmentalists “exist in much the same operational environment as al Qaida” and pose “a clear threat to private-sector corporate interests, especially large multinational business.” Therein lies the real “other purposes.”

Predictably then, H.R. 1955 is not about protecting homegrown Americans. That protection is only incidental to its “other purposes” of protecting homegrown corporate interest and its unconscionable manipulation of the American political process to fill its coffers. Any thought or speech or action— however protected it might be by the Bill of Rights—that threatens corporate hegemony and profit will no doubt suffer the “other purposes” clause of the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.

If you haven't called your Senators yet and asked them to kill this fascist bill... what the hell are you waiting for? An embossed invitation?