AMY GOODMAN: A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well. The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time” — time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment” — armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets....
FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.
It gets worse:
NAOMI WOLF: On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade — which means three to four thousand warriors — somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported to me having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is “crowd control” as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology “module package” as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.... The First Brigade is Bush’s force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.... Antoon himself calls the deployment “ominous.” Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested.... In St. Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens’ law enforcement agencies into contractors of a state that is directing acts of increasing severity against US citizens. Now a military brigade is being deployed....
FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.
Click here to see an interview with Naomi Wolf conducted in early October 2008.
For the past five years or so I hve been hearing rumors that Halliburton has been building (and has now finished building) 800 prisons throughout the USA, not yet functioning, but just waiting for the right crisis. I have not found reliable evidence for the specific quantity, readiness, functionality, locations, or details, but you might be interested in taking a look at page 5 of this Halliburton press release dated 26 January 2006: KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs.... Now, really, what are the chances of “an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States”? And what are the “new programs” that could come under “rapid development”?
FOR THE FULL PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE.
Warning: Contradictory claims of authorship here. Brass claims that he and Roberto Lerici alone wrote the script of The Borgias. But famous British author Wolf Mankowitz claimed that he alone wrote the original screenplay for this film, which he then placed in circulation via his agent in hopes of landing a gig. What I think happened is that Brass and Mankowitz both told the truth: Brass and Lerici coauthored an original screenplay, and once they (or their producers) noticed a rival script circulating, they decided that, rather than go into competition, they would be better off hiring Mankowitz. Ultimately the three of them collaborated on a rewrite. Giulio Sbarigia produced, the sets were built, Fernando Rey was hired to portray Pope Alexander VI, and things were moving ahead. But then the project came to a sudden screeching halt. When I first met Professor Mankowitz (on Monday, 14 June 1982) I asked about this, and he told me what happened:
Well, there are basically two things I remember about Tinto. One is that his wife’s cooking—his wife’s cooking—. You know the Italians cook excellent food? Well, his wife could cook a pheasant—a native pheasant—and it was the most delicious pheasant you have ever tasted. The other thing I remember about Tinto Brass is that it amazed me how someone could live such a normal, domesticated life at home, and such a sexually aberrant life in his profession on the screen.
Do you know if The Borgias was ever made? It wasn’t, was it? No. I’ll tell you why it was never made. You know, the Borgias were bloody and sexy enough to begin with, but Tinto wanted to make it even more bloody and more sexy, so he was coming up with things that the Borgias had never even thought of! The producers gave us about seven or eight million dollars to make the film. Now you know how films are sold in Italy? Well, the producers talk to the theater owners, the exhibitors, who eventually show the film, and they give it backing. And I said to Tinto, “You’re not going to tell them some of the scenes in this film? Like the one you talked about this morning?” (It was a scene that was not in the script, that Tinto had just added.) But he insisted that he tell them those scenes. So there he was, telling this group of family-type men these scenes of sex and violence.
Some months later I asked him if I could read the script. “Oh it’s somewhere in my archives. British television plagiarized it, you know, for a miniseries.” “I heard about that series,” I said, “but I never saw it.” “It was very bad. I know they plagiarized it, because they included things that are not in the history books; they were things I had invented.” I still want to read that script.
Here are the references:
Variety (8 March 1972, p. 28):
Giulio Sbarigia of Oceania Cinematografica is teaming with Jolly Film Producers Arrigo Colombo and Giorgio Papi to produce a comedy western “It’s a Tough Life, Eh Providence?” with Tomas Milian and Gregg Palmer. Western is first of five pix Sbarigia has slated. Other four are “The Borgia,” “The Damned of God” (from Sven Hassel’s novel), “The Ragamuffin of Nazareth” and “Salon Kitty”—all four in partnership with a new banner, Coralta....
Variety (12 July 1972, p. 32):
Tinto Brass is back from his jury assignment at Berlin Film Festival and prepping “The Borgias” as an Italo-British coproduction for producer Giulio Sbarigia’s Oceania Cinematografica. Fernando Rey is already set to play Pope Alexander VI....
Variety (29 November 1972, p. 34):
Art directors Colasanti and Moore have started set construction at Cinecittà for Oceania’s costume spectacle “The Borgias.” Giulio Sbarigia is producing and Tinto Brass directing on a reputed $3,000,000 budget from a script by Brass, Roberto Lerici and Wolf Mankowitz.
Variety (3 January 1973, p. 62):
Italian Films In Production
OCEANIA
THE BORGIA
(Jan start—locations Rome, London)
Producer: Coprod Giulio Sbarigia w/Gr. Britain
Director: Giovanni Tinto Brass
Variety (4 April 1973, p. 32):
Giovanni Brass is casting “The Borgias” with British and Italo performers and pic could finally get off the ground for Oceania in the next month or so, but when he does, Robert Mauri will probably have “I, Lucrezia Borgia” before cameras for Lattes Cinematografica.
To this day, Brass is still trying to get this film
off the ground. Too bad you can no longer see these dead links:
Laura Delli Colli, “Da Scorsese a Tinto Brass, l’Italia è
tutta un set,” Panorama On Line, 21 September 2000.
Laura Delli Colli, “Da Scorsese a Tinto Brass, l’Italia è
tutta un set,” L’Espresso, 21 September 2001, reprinted from
Panorama On Line, 21 September 2000.