How Protesters Become Terrorists

Police use tanks to combat peaceful demonstrators

R.F. Goggin, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

More and more lately, it seems I find myself asking the question just how and when the ‘Occupy’ protesters in the U.S. will be considered a threat to America’s Homeland Security? And then of course, treated as such. Surely I am not off in the wilderness in literally feeling such an eventuality is all but inevitable? It’s hard for one in fact, not to imagine that our Federal Government’s outrageously overzealous “If You See Something, Say Something!” campaign has been perfectly tailored to include those who are presently demonstrating in the streets of America against economic injustice and inequality. After all, aren’t explosive devices or chemical agents small and powerful enough to fit neatly into some ‘hippy’ backpack these days?

Naturally, the line of thought here embarked upon, vis-à-vis a government so eagerly paranoid to keep Americans safe and increasingly hell-bent on conducting witch hunt-like, intrusive domestic counter-terrorism policies; not to mention, being overly enthralled with its own Military Industrial Complex, leads one to further postulate that there are at least a few pesky laws in place to protect an individual’s right to free speech and/or constitutional civil liberties, which very well might be evaded or suspended by politicians or police should perceived threats to certain corrupt folks in lofty positions of money and power, conveniently morph into ‘national security’ issues. Creating a situation, of course, which obviously amounts to taking what have been up to this point relatively peaceful protesters or demonstrations, and thwarting or crushing their existence, as being terror-related?

There are some thoughtful Americans who believe that a so-called ‘lone wolf’, alleged terrorist suspect (supposedly under surveillance for two and-a-half years) arrested by New York City Police recently, was but a mere, good old-fashioned, war on terror – ‘patsy’, and that the cash and organization for his supposed plot, evidently foiled via the services of a paid FBI informant, as has been reported, was actually provided by none other that the U.S. Government. And so as fate would have it, supposedly, and quite suitably enough for the Mayor of New York City – as a result of this particular obscure and isolated ‘terrorist’ incident and/or apparent bit of federal entrapment, there next comes the disproportionate repercussion from Michael Bloomberg reportedly of deploying at least 1000 extra ‘counter-terrorism’ police to be on stand-by (one must assume) even within the very midst of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement?

Should this strategy taking place via Bloomberg to protect the corporate interests of Wall Street ripen to fruition, then I don’t know about anyone else, but I will find his excuse for installing an army and near police state in the heart of America’s biggest city; during an ongoing protest movement, to protect New Yorkers from some elusive and abstract so-called terror threat, to be just a whole lot of ill-conceived, very dangerous, patronizing bullshit. I am not that gullible a fool, nor stupid enough an American citizen, thank you very much. Are you? The very last person this woefully deceitful ‘Nanny’ of a Mayor of New York, seeks to protect, is an ordinary New Yorker.

Not surprisingly, given the victory that terrorists have already achieved over the American psyche, at least in Tampa, Florida, – where a not so bright public servant had the silly enough idea to roll a tank out of the garage in response to a few dozen ‘Occupiers’, we have all been shown the writing on the wall, so to speak, and just how the corporate and political status quo intends to proceed in the end with a grassroots threat to its self-imposed, precarious foundation and long-term security, ahead of time.

R.F. Goggin – is the editor of The New World Reporter, where he is a contributing author.