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All right y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
Our guest is Jim Bovard, the great Jim Bovard, author of the new memoir, Public Policy Hooligan.
And before that, the farm fiasco, the fair trade fraud, lost rights, freedom in chains, feeling your pain, terrorism and tyranny, the Bush betrayal, and attention deficit democracy.
Welcome back to the show, Jim.
How are you doing?
Hey, doing good, Scott.
Thanks for having me on.
Well, you're welcome.
I'm very happy to have you here.
And geez, you know, I know from reading your memoir that you used to live in Boston.
And I know from reading everything else you ever wrote that you're into liberty and stuff like that.
So I was wondering what you had to say about this lockdown from last week, in the pursuit of the younger of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
Well, you know, I've changed my home page in my screensaver.
Now they say Boston Strong.
Boston Strong meaning, can we come out from a cowering in our bathtub?
Well, it does seem that way.
I was amazed that they shut down the entire bloody city and basically put a million people under house arrest because of one suspect who got away and who never should have gotten away, considering how much firearms and surveillance that the law enforcement had in the confrontation on Thursday night.
And then once the guy gets away, the government basically goes wild and just shuts down the entire economy, basically takes a day out of a million people's lives and hits the panic buttons in a way that is just bizarre.
I mean, it's, you know, the bombers, the folks who did that bombing were horrible people and they deserve a very harsh punishment.
And if it was the suspects who did it, then those folks deserve harsh punishment.
So, but there was no reason to punish everybody else within like a 20 mile radius or as far as Amtrak went, a couple hundred mile radius.
Yeah.
Well, man, you know, what's interesting about this, too, is that I mean, it's just a week later just looking at it.
All of the new domestic homeland security state and all the surveillance and everything, none of it really had anything to do with the solving of the case.
I mean, even the photos of the suspects on the sidewalk came from private cameras.
Right.
And then so the only thing that the only thing that the cops really even did was give the pictures to CNN, which they could have done in 1998, too.
And it's interesting.
There's a report just out now that Lindsey Graham was saying that the reason the FBI didn't know that the older brother was, you know, was as suspicious as he was, is because the name on his flight, his overseas trip to Russia and Chechnya in 2001 was misspelled.
And so we're spending these, what, 40 or 50 billion dollars on homeland security.
And you've got a spelling error that that prevents the government from recognizing, like, yeah, this is someone who they really should be looking at, probably.
I mean, given some of his comments and some of his utterances.
So it's just it's interesting.
Well, it makes me see what we learned.
The thing I think I want to know is what the FBI knew and when did it know it or what should have known.
But it's fascinating to see that so few people so far have pushed back against this idea that there's a screw up, basically by law enforcement annealing suspects, that they somehow become entitled to unlimited power over a million people or two million people.
And this kind of that everybody's rights are suspended.
Well, yeah, and they get to completely write the history of their own thing, too.
I mean, the the self congratulations at the press conference after they caught the guy.
And again, they didn't catch him.
It was a citizen who, in fact, if he hadn't been locked down all day, might have found him 12 hours earlier, who went out to smoke a cigarette and noticed the tarp on his boat was awry or whatever.
So it wasn't even the cops.
The only role the cops played basically was saying, hey, be on the lookout for this guy.
As you pointed out, the kid escaped a firefight the night before.
They let him get away with their fat asses and all their stormtrooper gear couldn't hop a fence like he could.
And so or I guess he drove away and they let him get away.
I don't know.
I don't know the details of that.
And it's interesting how the narrative is evolving.
They were first saying 200 shots were fired.
Now it might be 300.
And the question I have was, well, how many shots were fired by the suspects?
And the suspects had what, a 45 or something like that?
I don't know.
I'm also not sure.
But I mean, the the firepower, the firepower by the law enforcement was vastly superior.
And since the since the the guy who was a carjack had left his cell phone in the SUV, the cops could basically figure out, well, they're probably here.
So at that spot.
So it's like I'm I'm puzzled with all the resources there that they would.
Not be able to nail those two.
And it's interesting, too.
There was a photo that was really iconic to me.
It's interesting.
The there's a front page style section.
The Washington Post piece today about saying that the photo of the elderly marathoner with the three cops around him after the bombing, that this is this is this is as iconic as the flag raising at Iwo Jima and the Kent State shooting and stuff like that.
But the photo that some of the photos that really strike me is like there is a photo I posted online today.
Also at antiwar dot com of the of the cop, I guess, a military outfit and in a armored vehicle or tank, just pointing his rifle at the window of someone taking a picture of the cops down down the street.
And apparently, folks, you know, there was a potential death sentence for people who looked out the window because the cops were always screaming, get away from the windows.
Hey, let me ask you, was it U.S. Army or was it all just National Guard?
Don't know.
I would guess it was National Guard.
Don't know.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
At this point, a deputy sheriff trained by special forces is special forces to me.
They are the soldiers quartered among us, just our local sheriff's departments nowadays.
So it's at least, you know, de facto martial law, even under the Boston PD and the local FBI SWAT teams and whatever going around.
National Guard, I know, is not the same thing as, you know, violating posse comitatus.
But basically you're talking about roving bands of special forces.
Soldiers are the only people allowed out on the streets.
Well, and there was a fascinating comment which you made earlier in our conversation about the major general who was down there during the searches in Katrina.
Yeah.
Did you see that?
I didn't see that.
But tell the story.
Yeah.
OK, I'll tell it.
So if people have ever seen Spike Lee's documentary about Katrina, it's really good.
And no matter what you think of Spike Lee and his other movies or whatever, I mean, basically just points the camera at people and lets them talk.
And it's I think it was a multiple part thing for HBO.
And it's just really great for for looking at a very important part of American history there.
But anyway, there's one scene where there's this old black general, Major General.
I don't know exactly his rank, but he's probably 65 years old or something, which I'd point out being that, you know, he's from an older generation.
He remembers a different way of life kind of a thing.
You know what I mean?
And he's a general and he's got army, U.S.
Army guys and I guess National Guard, too.
And they're driving around in their Humvees and they're basically doing what is their experience.
They're hard and combat veterans from the Iraq and Afghan wars.
And they're driving around with their with their rifles pointed, you know, out at the city.
And this general's just start.
Oh, he loses it.
He gets so mad at them and he starts screaming at them that this is America.
This is not Iraq.
And you are not surrounded by enemies.
And you will point your rifles at the ground or else, you know, he'll Darth Vader choke.
He is not playing.
And the soldiers are, you know, completely chastised.
And oh, and point their rifles at the ground.
But the lesson there is it's only because of his will.
Right.
It's only because there is one exceptionally responsible general.
And if you're if your city is ever under martial law, you sure hope it's under the command of a great guy like him.
But it doesn't have to be.
And there are a lot of major generals in the U.S.
Army who are not as responsible as he is and do not think that way.
Do not even understand the concept of America and the Constitution the way that this particular man happened to understand it.
So that was the lesson to me was the fact that he was so good on it was, you know, just imagine take that away without his particular personality at play.
What are we dealing with?
We're dealing with the people of New Orleans being treated like they're the people of Fallujah.
Not like it's OK to treat the people of Fallujah that way, but still.
So now here's the thing about this, too.
I forget if you've already said this in today's interview or whether it's just something we talked about on the phone this morning, though.
The pictures of these guys going around really make them look bad, don't they?
I mean, I look at at streets full of, you know, armies of SWAT officers like this with all their armor and all their machine guns.
And I think what a bunch of seriously, man, they why are they so afraid?
You know, I don't know.
I don't know if the individuals are that much afraid, but it's a mindset which they've gotten into.
And it's the it's like a Fallujah mindset, as you mentioned earlier.
And it's it makes them much less agile.
And it makes at some point it's to make it less likely that people cooperate with them because they they are there.
They're relying on intimidation.
And after a horrendous, horrendous attack, vicious attack like at the marathon, that could work briefly.
But folks are going to lose lose faith.
You know, I'm reminded back in 2001, I was knocking around the mountains of Western North Carolina.
I was traveling with my ex at that point, soon to be ex.
And we were looking for the Chateau back in some little hotel back in some little mountain corner there.
And so we pulled up in front of this little village hardware store.
And this big old bald guy comes strutting out the store and says, what part of Maryland are you from?
And I was kind of like, well, he's really friendly.
So I just, you know, start chatting with the guy.
About five minutes later, he admitted he thought I was an undercover federal agent.
And I'm not used to being accused of that.
So I said, well, why do you think that?
Well, you're from Maryland.
You're driving a black car.
And I said, OK, well, are there are there other signs of federal agents?
And he said, well, those federal agents, they always have these GPS trackers hidden under the back of their car.
And I said, why don't you take a look?
He said, OK, I'll do that.
So he checked.
He didn't find a GPS tracker.
And he and he he decided I wasn't a federal agent.
It turned out that shortly before that, the FBI had had like 200 agents in that area because Eric Rudolph was supposedly hiding there.
And the FBI had made this big announcement.
They're sending in their best and the brightest.
It was the only question of time till they grabbed Eric Rudolph.
However, the FBI came in there and they pissed off people so bad that they got almost no cooperation from locals.
FBI would go and throw people out of restaurants, out of hotels, motels and take them over.
And pretty soon people would not even serve the meal that the FBI failed completely because they lost the cooperation support of the populace.
The same thing could happen elsewhere.
And if it does, then the law enforcement can have all their toys and go right up and down the street.
But people aren't going to tell them squat.
And the same thing could happen elsewhere.
Once people look more at these photos and these videos, because it's interesting how the public perception of Waco changed in part because of video, because of the great movie done by Mike McNulty and Dan Gifford, Waco Rules of Engagement, and plus some of the activism that you were doing and other folks were doing.
And eventually within a couple of years after the FBI's final assault and leaving 80 people dead, all of a sudden people said, well, wait a minute, the government went way too far.
Well, you know, it took more years than that, actually, because the Oklahoma bombing served to kind of justify Waco after the fact, as though all the government did was go back in time and get the people who were responsible for the Oklahoma bombing, was the way most people conceived of that until probably the late 90s when the sequel, A New Revelation, came out.
And they had to admit that, yeah, they had used pyrotechnic rounds.
And I think only then did it really start to change.
Well, it's interesting that in the summer, mid-summer of 1995, there was a shift, which is why the House of Representatives held hearings, though they were pretty much, you know, pussified.
Most of the congressmen were.
There were some folks that did some good questioning.
There was some great stuff that came out of those hearings.
But, you know, there was a shift in public perception.
And if the government, you know, does the same thing that it did in Boston, shutting down entire cities, locking up a million people, then having the troops around, you know, threatening to kill anybody who looks out the window, at some point this is going to change public opinion.
And it might not make 51 percent of people distrust the government or not support the government.
But if there's 10 or 15 or 20 percent of people who are out there not willing to submit, and with their cell phones and their camcoms and other things, documenting government overreach, that can eventually shift public opinion.
Yeah.
Well, you know, and the thing is, too, it's such overreach.
It's just, it's ridiculous when, you know, in fact, I posted a thing on Twitter making fun about, hey, there's another murder in Boston and no arrests have been made yet, and so you're going to lock down the whole city for that, too?
How every day in every major city there's a murderer on the loose.
Are you kidding me?
Well, yeah, it takes me to take a look at a place like the District of Columbia.
How many unsolved murders do they have?
They have hundreds, if not thousands.
So it's like, OK, well, but those aren't a problem.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
And then, of course, the house to house searches didn't accomplish anything.
I read somewhere that they had actually searched the house with the boat, but I don't think I can confirm I read that more than one place or something.
They actually searched the house with the boat, didn't find him and left.
And it wasn't until they lifted the lockdown.
The guy went outside to smoke a cigarette and noticed that the tarp over the boat was amiss and decided, right.
And, you know, you know, there are so many people in those areas that live for their boats.
I mean, yeah, I mean, I mean, it's like messing with somebody's Harley and you get this 300 pound guy coming out with tattoos.
OK, you don't mess with this Harley.
Right.
Now, it's going to be interesting to see if there is.
Well, I'm curious to see how long the government can withhold information that would put this in a different light, because, again, what did the FBI know?
Because it's understandable that there are concerns about that older brother.
But somehow they, as Senator Lindsey Graham says, the FBI dropped the ball.
Well, you know, I mean, that sounds like the FBI, but he said the federal government dropped the ball.
Look, as is absolutely ridiculous as it sounds.
And just what a what a simple excuse that oops, his name was spelled wrong.
Doesn't that sound exactly like the kind of thing that would happen?
Right.
Like weren't they sending renewed visas to the hijackers after the September 11th attack?
I had forgotten that detail.
This is our security force, Jim, that we can't do without the guys who they were warned by the Russians that, hey, this this guy who's living in your country is palling around with terrorists.
Then he goes to Chechnya.
Then he comes back and the FBI claims, at least so far, the best interpretation of this story is that they never talk to him again.
And then this happened on their watch again.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
After 9-11, it took like, I think, seven or eight months until it came out that the government.
Wait, let me interrupt you for just one second to say that Jay Carney is announcing that despite Lindsey Graham's protestations, the suspect will not be treated as an enemy combatant.
He will be indicted and and gone through the normal civilian process.
So thank goodness for that.
Good.
At least it's not John McCain.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good thing because, I mean, there's there's plenty of evidence.
Well, based on what we've heard, it's not like there is sufficient evidence to convict him based on the sheer facts of the matter.
So it doesn't make sense to, you know, throw him into some kind of whole new purgatory.
I mean, he's an American citizen accused of heinous crime, heinous crime.
But, you know, OK, so let's let's let the courts pursue this.
Yeah.
And in fact, as far as Miranda goes, Miranda is not a law that forbids cops from asking suspects questions.
Miranda just says, if you don't tell them what all their rights are first, then you won't be able to use those questions in court against them later.
But so if they want to put an intelligence value on it, they don't have to Miranda eyes.
And they just can't use.
But like you just said, presumably they don't need his confession to convict him.
Right.
Right.
And it's and part of the thing, too, is that, I mean, it's there are some folks that think that he's not giving a formal Miranda warning that he's basically being tortured.
And it's not the case.
I mean, the the the notion of a Miranda warning was the Supreme Court came up with that in the 1960s.
And in a lot of cases, it's vital to justice.
I don't know if it is in this case.
Yeah.
And by the way, you know, I think everybody is pro accused rights.
And and in in I don't I don't even think it's, you know, never even mind this Miranda exception.
I'm, in fact, against exceptions to Miranda, but just treat Miranda as what it is.
You know, if these if the cops think that that these two brothers had friends and colleagues who helped them do what they did and they're determined to interrogate them, then go ahead and interrogate them.
But you can't use it in court later.
But so what?
I mean, if what the cops say in this case is true, then they're not going to have a problem proving it forensically a million ways.
Right.
Once they, you know, start collecting all the evidence about.
Yeah.
And if it turns out that these two guys are part of a broader conspiracy, I mean, there was a Justin had a very good call on antiwar dot com today on this.
I mean, some of these church and I mean, there's a lot of church and criminal groups here.
And it's too bad the government's focus so much of its attention on antiwar dot com and antiwar protesters and perhaps not paid enough attention to some of the church and criminal gangs.
Yeah.
Well, and this is I was explaining earlier on the show how I'm not buying into at least very many of the conspiracy theorists so-called discrepancies that they've found in this thing.
But it certainly is the case that the FBI has entrapped dozens and dozens of people, 50 of them, according to the new book, The Terror Factory, that are outright entrapment.
I mean, we're talking hundreds of bogus cases, but 50 that are outright set up entrapment jobs on this.
And so I think it's still possible that we could find out that this guy was, you know, the FBI agents anyway, thought he was their informant or maybe they had used an informant to try to radicalize him so they could bust him for something.
I mean, I haven't seen any evidence of that yet, but I certainly wouldn't discount it.
I've told you before, I'm I'm certain that that's what happened in Oklahoma City, was that it was a sting that got way out of hand.
And that was the explanation for the second Ryder truck is that the neo-Nazis who were all compromise who.
Well, you could say they were compromised by the feds, but they compromised the feds who compromised them, too.
Right.
Works both ways.
And they just got another Ryder truck.
You guys go ahead and follow this one around all you want.
We'll make a bomb in the other one.
They went ahead and did their bombing anyway.
And so hence the gigantic cover up in the murder of one hundred and eighty six people in that one.
Yeah, I just I mean, the thing I hope is that there could be a way to squeeze out the information out of the government so that we know what the government knew and when it knew it as early as possible on this, because to see how how the events were spun after 9-11 for months on end and then suddenly we find out that there was these the FBI agents in various places in the country sent very clear warnings and laid it out and practically explained, well, this appears to be what's happening here.
And yet for six months after 9-11, it was like, well, nobody knew anything and there was no way that we could have known.
Oh, yeah.
Well, except for those memos, except for that warning, except for this warning.
So but it certainly makes it makes no sense at all to be putting any kind of halo over the government response on this.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I don't know if you saw this one, Colleen Rowley, the great whistleblower, Time magazine person of the year 2002.
She wrote this thing at Consortium News about how what was the FBI in Minneapolis?
What was their evidence that they took to their bosses that said that this guy is tied to foreign terrorists?
So we ought to be able to use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to use a lower standard of evidence, lower than probable cause to be able to search all of his papers and records and whatever.
And their evidence was that he and his brother were tied to the Mujahideen in Chechnya and that the Chechen Mujahideen were friends with the bin Ladenites.
At least their leader was personally associated with Osama bin Laden.
But the politics were that the neocons and the rest of the war party in D.C., they were in favor of the Chechen Mujahideen against the Russians, just like Afghanistan the decade before.
And so they wanted to turn a blind eye and say, just like Giuliani.
She's reminding us, pointing out Giuliani saying this week, what Chechen Mujahideen?
But they would never attack us.
We like them.
Wow.
That's fascinating.
That detail slipped my radar.
Yeah, always pay attention to what Colleen Rowley says.
That's my philosophy.
Yeah, she's got a lot of gumption.
She's done some great work.
All right, listen, I've got to let you go.
I'm sorry that I called you late and this thing is falling short of half an hour.
But it's great to talk to you.
I'm begging everybody to read all your books because they'll be so much better on everything once they do.
Well, Scott, thanks so much for your kind words and keep up the great radio show.
Appreciate you.
All right.
But everybody, that's Jim Bovard, author of Public Policy Hooligan, officially denounced by more than a dozen government departments.
Seriously, go look at his Wikipedia page.
He's got the quotes.
I think you probably find him at Jim Bovard dot com to the quotes of all these different government departments accusing Jim Bovard basically of treason for being such a good reporter kicking their asses.
And also, please read Attention Deficit Democracy and the Bush betrayal and terrorism and tyranny.
And if you want a great revisionist history of the 1990s, then there's freedom in chains and feeling your pain and on and on like that.
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