Bush's non-militarized rational middle ground : Deploy 6000 soldiers on the border

Let the militarization of domestic policies begin!

I know, this is kind of old news for the blogosphere, but I think we need to revisit this quote via President Bush Addresses the Nation on Immigration Reform

Training thousands of new Border Patrol agents and bringing the most advanced technology to the border will take time. Yet the need to secure our border is urgent. So I'm announcing several immediate steps to strengthen border enforcement during this period of transition:

One way to help during this transition is to use the National Guard. So, in coordination with governors, up to 6,000 Guard members will be deployed to our southern border. The Border Patrol will remain in the lead. The Guard will assist the Border Patrol by operating surveillance systems, analyzing intelligence, installing fences and vehicle barriers, building patrol roads, and providing training. Guard units will not be involved in direct law enforcement activities -- that duty will be done by the Border Patrol. This initial commitment of Guard members would last for a period of one year. After that, the number of Guard forces will be reduced as new Border Patrol agents and new technologies come online. It is important for Americans to know that we have enough Guard forces to win the war on terror, to respond to natural disasters, and to help secure our border.

The United States is not going to militarize the southern border. Mexico is our neighbor, and our friend. We will continue to work cooperatively to improve security on both sides of the border, to confront common problems like drug trafficking and crime, and to reduce illegal immigration.

Is it even worth the effort to call on this bullshit? Which brings me to a guy y'all should be reading by now : my friend Roberto Lovato [via New America Media] :

Thanks to the expansion of the definitions of "terrorist" and "terrorist sympathizer" under the Patriot Act and other post-9-11 statutes and thanks to the exponential growth of the means that government agencies like the Pentagon can spy on Americans, the number of people who can be spied on has grown dramatically.

The release of the surveillance memos makes me wonder not if but how, the FBI and the Pentagon are spying on those who have joined in the massive immigration marches. Just last week, documents released by the Pentagon revealed that it had been spying on gay and lesbian groups opposed to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Millions marching for immigrants' rights must be among the more than 200 million whose phone records were given to the NSA by AT&T, Bell South and Verizon.

It's especially disturbing to hear these ongoing expos&eacite;s just before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who spends most of the $45 billion authorized by Congress for intelligence on the greatest expansion of the Pentagon's foreign and domestic spying capabilities in history, said last Thursday, "I'm not in the intelligence business," in response to questions asked by protester and former CIA agent, Ray McGovern.

I've been on Roberto's ass to come on over to the blog. Unfortunately, the man is too busy getting paid for his writing.

Oh well.

Roberto has become one of the go-to guys on how the Bushites has used it's power to use immigration as the straw man for national security. In the blogosphere we have David Neiwert, with his work on the rise of pseudo-fascism; and Eric Mueller with his fisking of anything to do with Michelle Malkin's unhinged spewages about immigration.

I will be revisiting someo of Roberto's work here. In the meantime, I think it is extremely important to keep this little detail in mind : because we blog about politics and we voice our dissent, we've become enemies of the state.

Who would have thought.

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