Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

DOD Manual Classes Political Protests As "Low Level Terrorism"

By Steve Hynd


Via Fester, who's too busy today, comes this:



The Department of Defense is training all of its personnel in its current Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course that political protest is "low-level terrorism." 


...The first question of the Terrorism Threat Factors, "Knowledge Check 1" section reads as follows:


Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?


Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer. 


O   Attacking the Pentagon


O   IEDs


O   Hate crimes against racial groups


O   Protests


*** 


The "correct" answer is Protests.


A copy of this can be found on the last two pages of this pdf.  


The ACLU learned of this training and on June 10, 2009 sent a letter to the Gail McGinn, Acting Under-Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, objecting to their training all DoD personnel that the exercise of First Amendment rights constitutes "low-level terrorism."  


This course is an annual web-based training requirement for all DoD personnel. The ACLU press release states:



�DoD employees cannot fully protect our nation and its values unless they understand that a core American value is the constitutional right to criticize our government through protest activities,� said ACLU of Northern California attorney Ann Brick. �It is fundamentally wrong to equate activism with terrorism.�


Well, yeah. I'd hope even the Malkinite crazies agreed on that.


The course appears to be a hangover from the Bush years, so maybe the Obama administration will act swiftly to set things right. Though with the White House currently taking the Bush stance on all kinds of paranoid secrecy policies - including White House guest records - I won't be holding my breath.



Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

2 comments:

  1. geoffJune 16, 2009 at 7:30 AM

    Now how does that fit in with Obama scolding the Iranian gov't yesterday about street demonstrations. Someone needs to brief the POTUS/Commander-in-Chief I'd think ASAP so he can get with the game. eh. Too funny.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlanSmitheeJune 16, 2009 at 1:22 PM

    third content-less post from this commenter. Banned. Regards, Steve

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)