ENEMY OF THE STATE
ENEMY OF THE STATE
In my career I have interviewed a lot of people and have had many experiences shared on my radio show. Some are forgotten some however burn in my memory. One particular interview that stands out in my mind is the Interview I did with Colorado Rockies announcer Jerry Schemmel. His name may not be familiar with most of you but Schemmel was one of the survivors of the well known commercial air crash of Flight 232 in Sioux City Iowa.
There were 296 people onboard; 112 died, including Jerry’s dear friend, Jay Ramsdell. Jerry also is known for a bit of heroism, because instead of fleeing the burning cabin to safety, he stayed behind to save a baby that somehow ended up in an overhead compartment.
Jerry had told me that he what he did was not as heroic as it sounded. He was well aware as were all the passengers that the plane was going to crash. All on board were told the plane was going to crash. They were told to mentally prepare for it. Jerry had to accept that the plane he was on was going to crash, and when it did he was ready to do anything to help people to safety if he survived.
The reason I bring this up is because philosophically I feel the same way about our way of life here in America. We have been hearing the America is going to crash and all or nothing thinkers believe that it will kill us all. There are all or nothing thinkers that believe that their guns will protect them when it call crashes around them. There are those who have mentally prepared by getting food and stocking up on things for survival. There are those who are in denial and can’t see that where we are is not far from another achievement of Ground Zero.
Like the plane crash, not all will die when the country crashes, not all will suffer, and not all will be detained and not all will feel the pain and suffering. The only difference I see with this comparison is that with plane crashes, no one ever says that the souls on board deserve to die, or deserve the mental anguish of feeling the gravity change before the metal tube lams into the earth. No one deserves to see their friends die in a vortex of fire and blood. No one deserves to be taken from the airport to be interrogated, or briefed, no one deserves the pain in knowing that they will never see their loved ones again.
In America however, in the aftermath of our crash, innocent people will die. People will be detained, people will be in pain, people will be taken away never to be seen again by their loved ones. People will be tortured, and people who mentally prepared for all of it, hopefully will help the suffering. Unfortunately there will be those who will politicized the pain and suffering, the torture and detainment as “deserved” because they were victims of a no knock warrant, or an unlawful search. It will be said that those in the jails all deserve to be there, even without due process. There will be television commentators that will excuse the plans of the government and reinforce their resolve and encourage community leaders and churches to denounce the behaviors of those who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston has gone on the record as saying that “American citizens are not immune from being treated like an enemy if they take up arms against the United States.” Furthermore they are not immune from being treated like a potential enemy if they protest, assemble with groups or even have the slightest connection to a well known terrorist organization. You don’t have to assemble bombs, threaten school children, or even burn a flag to be under suspicion. They don’t even need probable cause. If they think that you are a threat or if they profile you as a terror mastermind, you may not see the light of day.
There are many people who will take the government’s word that the new laws and the civil rights violation only apply to terrorists, however that is naïve and there are a lot of people who have been under the gun and harassed by alphabet agencies and government paid security just because they fit a certain profile that has nothing to do with guilt or any other associations with so called terrorists. America is under the gun, literally and people who have never experienced government harassment are so sure of themselves in knowing that it doesn’t happen here. That there are no American targets. It is already assumed that if you are a target you most definitely have some sort of guilt.
This is wrong, and this attitude is normal for those who have been traumatized into accepting without question or rebellion a police state.
On August 29, 2010 Emmanuel Charles scheduled a trip to Boise, Idaho. He was a used car salesman from Portland Oregon and he would travel to various auto auctions around the country to purchase cars for their car lot. While in Boise Charles, who was originally form Haiti got a hotel room and felt very uncomfortable about the way he was treated. Being a man of color he worried a little about whether or not his skin color was an issue, but paid it no mind because he was from Haiti.
After a night of being treated poorly by the hotel staff he left early on August 30th to go to the Boise Idaho airport to book a flight to Las Vegas Nevada. There were auto auctions there as well and he needed to come back to Portland with at least some cars in order to make his trip fruitful. Emmanuel did not prepay for his ticket and so upon arriving at the Boise Airport he began checking travel rates at the various airline desks at the airport.
Emmanuel immediately was under suspicion because he had not bought a ticket and the TSA decided that he would be their target fir harassment that day. They kept asking him where his ticket was and he continually told them that he was looking over the various rates for airfare.
He finally decided to buy a ticket and while at the desk he gave his bank card to the receptionist and it would not work. So he had to phone his wife in order to get the money to buy a ticket. His wife purchased a ticket for him online through Delta Airlines. Dawn relates that while she was on the phone with her Husband, there was a TSA official yelling at her husband about not having his ticket. After the hassle Emmanuel finally was able to get through TSA check through.
He had some time befofe his flight to go to the bathroom and sit in a restaurant to eat. While in the bathroom he saw a poster on the all that was advertising a concert. The poster was defaced with racist graffiti, and an arrow was drawn through the head of a black singer with dreadlocks, and blood was drawn pouring from his body. He removed the poster from the wall and told officials that it shouldn’t be in a bathroom where people could see it.
The officials laughed at him and told him not to worry and that it was just a poster. They apparently did not care if the poster was depicting the killing of a black singer in an airport. Emmanuel then walked to a restaurant and watched CNN on a closed circuit television. He then glanced over and saw a well dressed man that he thought at first was an Idaho senator. Emmanuel brought the poster to the senator to get his opinion on the matter. He held out his hand and shook the man’s hand and then showed him the poster.
Security then showed up and grabbed Charles and escorted him out of the restaurant, his transgression was that he shook hands with House Majority leader Steny Royer. His security experience was then handled by the Secret Service who put a hold on the flight that Emmanuel was scheduled to be on.
The TSA and the Secret Service told Emmanuel that he would not be able to fly on the plane because the Boise Police wanted him for trespassing. One of the policemen had pulled a knife out of his shirt and attempted to put it in the carry on in order to frame with carrying a concealed weapon.
Another officer had told him to remove the knife because Emmanuel had already been through check point and that no one would believe that he got a knife through checkpoint especially with all of the commotion that he had already caused.
Emmanuel was cuffed and was interrogated by Boise Police. The police had told him that they had concrete evidence that he was wanted by the FBI because of an alleged partnership with the Talban and Osama Bin laden.
The truth was that they had no evidence, and no proof of any relationship to a terrorist organization. They used the allegation to frighten him. Emmanuelle had an Alaskan drivers license which also aroused suspicion. The police were thinking that they had a spy, and were asking him what he was doing in the United States. They allowed him a a phone call and unfortunately Dawn, his wife missed the call. She later notice that she received a call from a Boise jail and immediately called back to see what was happening.
A representative from Delta airlines called her as well and asked if Emmenuel was Arabic, part of Islam or Muslim. Emmanuel provided a Social security number and was charged with criminal trespassing and they posted bail.
He was forced to go back to the same airport, took a Delta flight to Vegas however the TSA would not allow Emmanuel to put baggage on the flight. He also was escorted to a seat and was told that under any circumstances he was not to speak to anyone.
When he arrived in Vegas he was greeted by the US Marshalls. This added to his anxiety. He now felt like he was a target. He checked into a room at the Stratosphere on August 31st. he wanted to call his wife but was deprived of phone service. When he went downstairs to see why there were air Marshals still watching him. The woman at the desk encouraged him to buy a phone card. He rushed back to his room and was met by security telling him that the room was not available and had to be moved to another room.
Now, Emmanuel was getting a bit frazzled. He was being harassed and he knew it. He left the hotel to make a call at a phone across the street. Again his wife missed the call and by then real fear was gripping Emmanuel and so he asked a police officer for help. The officer thought that Emmanuel was losing his mind and called an Ambulance to get him.
The ambulance showed up, they put him on a stretcher and loaded him in. the attendants told him to lay still, that there were a group of people that were after him and wanted to kill him. They injected him with a sedative to calm him down. They never asked him if he was allergic to any drugs, or asked about family or whereabouts. The sedatives knocked him unconscious.
He awoke in a hospital strapped to the bed. He demanded that he get a phone call to call his wife. When she finally got a hold of him , a woman on the line said that he would not be able to talk, when Dawn threatened legal action the woman said. You can speak to him but this will be the last time at least for a year. The woman then claimed that Emmanuel was not in the Hospital. Frightened, Dawn booked a flight to Vegas to try and find her husband.
When she arrived she finally found him and when she went back to his room he was in a vegetative state. He didn’t recognize his wife. He was shaking and in a daze. She had to get documentation to prove that her husband was not a terrorist, or affiliated with any terror organization. He has been in and out of hospitals traumatized by the events, has been threatened with deputation and several other harassments.
He finally was released from the hospital and both flew back to Portland. He now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress and dawn is still trying to get anyone to find out why this happened and why her husband was treated so badly.
Dawn does not know how to help her husband now. The damage has been done. He is frightened for his life and is also frightened to be in the United States. He now has asked for deportation for his safety.
He now fears for his life.
Thanks to highly controlled information many Americans are unaware of the criminal activity that is going on behind the scenes. Many who are aware are helpless to do anything about it. Others are willing accomplices because they still believe the system does not abuse its power.
The bending and mutilating of constitutional laws and human rights have been well documented. The continued power grabs and wanton greed of the warlords, are finally being revealed. No longer are we to guess about the intentions of those in power. We no longer have to speculate about targets. They have all been published in books and in essays submitted to think tanks that are financed by the same self important fascists that have their cold grip on our nation. We can just stand idly by and watch the entire system of social programs, the welfare of the states, the counties and the cities of the United States disintegrate. The country has been wrapped inside a massive shroud of fear and with this fear there is a demand for more control by the powers that be. This unfortunately is a mistake. A mistake we could have avoided if we just paid attention to history.
In the real world, terror against the United states is always publicized, however terror against its citizens carried out by power wielding government organizations is seldom reported.
In a police state you are collateral damage, and in the court of public opinion you are already labeled a trouble maker the minute you pose for your mugshot and people are bankrolled to make your plight apolitical football.
You think that it is all easily summed up in a sound bite, but the human fragility is never mentioned. Someone breaks down in the public eye and we assume that they had it coming.
In a predator state the majority are siding with the predators. They will be eaten too. Little by little until there will be no one left.
