{"id":22207,"date":"2022-04-30T10:29:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-30T17:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=22207"},"modified":"2022-04-30T10:29:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T17:29:24","slug":"nothing-spells-big-government-better-than-gop-big-lie-embrace-of-martial-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/30\/nothing-spells-big-government-better-than-gop-big-lie-embrace-of-martial-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing Spells ‘Big Government’ Better Than GOP ‘Big Lie’ Embrace of Martial Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"U.S.<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) holds up a “Stop the Steal” mask while speaking with fellow first-term Republican members of Congress on the steps of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 4, 2021.\u00a0 (Photo: Saul Loeb\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Big Lie isn’t just that Trump had an election stolen from him: the Republicans have been running a longer con for three generations. Let’s call it what it is: the road to fascism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

THOM HARTMANN<\/a> April 29, 2022 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say the Republican<\/strong> Party has gone nuts. In reality, they\u2019ve simply reached the endpoint toward which they\u2019ve been moving for 62 years: fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican politicians since Barry Goldwater\u2019s 1960 campaign have trash-talked \u201cbig government\u201d in the United States. Like Reagan\u2019s assertions that cutting taxes on rich people would \u201ctrickle down\u201d benefits to poor people, or his claim that destroying labor unions would increase take-home pay for working people, this one\u2019s just another lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the 1980s, in fact, the GOP has been the ultimate \u201cbig government\u201d party.  And now we\u2019re learning that Republicans in Congress were, just three days before Joe Biden was to be sworn in as president, calling for the ultimate big government power: martial law to prevent Biden\u2018s inauguration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they started, it was just another grift. But now it has built a strong foundation for martial law and fascism in the United States should another Trumpy Republican win the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no provision in either the Constitution or US law for a president to specifically invoke martial (or, as Marjorie Taylor Green calls it, \u201cMarshall\u201d) law, although a series of statutes under Sections 251-255 of Title 10<\/a>, passed between 1792 and 1871 and generally referred to collectively as the Insurrection Act<\/em>, can produce the same result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They give the president extraordinary powers, allowing him to shut down or seize control of communications systems like cell phone providers or social media companies, freeze or seize the assets of individual citizens or organizations including nonprofit corporations like political parties, and to create a federal police force he can deploy nationwide that is answerable only to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(If all of this sounds familiar, it\u2019s almost step for step what Hitler did; we remember its most famous artifact, the Schutzstaffel or SS.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s exactly what members of the GOP\u2019s Insurrection Caucus in Congress were asking President Trump to do as recently as January 17th, 2021, all to keep Trump in power for another four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making it all even more shocking, this newly-revealed coup attempt happened months after Joe Biden won the election, the states and Congress had certified that win on January 6th, and the world was preparing to welcome Biden to the White House at noon, January 20th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Big Lie isn\u2019t just that Trump had an election stolen from him: the GOP has been running a longer con, preparing the ground for Trump, for three generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they started, it was just another grift. But now it has built a strong foundation for martial law and fascism in the United States should another Trumpy Republican win the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was 58 years ago that Barry Goldwater proclaimed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I remember this ad playing on my parents\u2019 black-and-white TV during that 1964 election contest between Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson:Play<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GOP\u2019s proclaimed opposition to \u201cbig government\u201d was a lie then, and it\u2019s a lie now. They\u2019re quite happy to both expand and use government, so long as it\u2019s used to benefit themselves and their rich friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been, however, a very useful lie for Republicans:<\/p>\n\n\n\n