Western governments are rolling out about one repressive measure a month now. From Richard Eskow at consortiumnews.com:
The real goal of the bill is to suppress free speech, writes Richard Eskow. If enacted it would ultimately infringe everyone’s civil liberties.
U.S. Capitol steps. (Alan Grinberg, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Totalitarianism rarely shows its true face when it arises. Instead, it often pretends to stand for good and decent values. A new bill claims to fight anti-Semitism, something all decent people oppose.
But anti-Semitism — that is, bias and discrimination against Jews because of their religion or ethnic identity — is already barred under civil rights law. The real goal of the so-called “Antisemitism Awareness Act” is to suppress free speech.
This dangerous bill was passed by the House of Representatives and now awaits a Senate vote. It outsources some of our constitutional rights to an outside organization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, whose arbitrary definition of anti-Semitism poses a threat to civil liberties.
It could be used to crush legitimate debate about Israel, its policies and American policies toward it — policies that have given rise to one of the greatest acts of genocide since the Holocaust.
[See: Misdirecting the Fight Against Anti-Semitism]
This bill could suppress historical research and ban the mention of facts that have been verified by international organizations. It could initiate lawsuits, funding cuts and disciplinary action across all American “education programs or activities, and for other purposes.” (Those “other purposes” are not defined.)
Student protesters, professors, writers and even elected officials could face political repression and become legal targets.
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” ― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome
Why not an anti-sino awareness as well since they put some shekels in the golden buckets of the indispensable apparatchik bureaucrat managers pension plan.
Oh…some are a little more equal than others.
Will terms like shekel, skullcap, small hat, become verboten?
The little indispensable dog wags the tail of the big dog.
Laws work, the prisons are empty and once an imperial edict is hammered out on a stone tablet, problem solved.
Love the meme of School House Rock update for how does a bill turn into a law, with a hand forking over a wad of cash.
The worst government that shekels can buy.
This just in from Blowfly:
Blowfly’s Rapp (Edited Version)