I’ve just gotten word that Infoshop News is offline and needs help with their internet access bill — to the tune of $170. If you value what they do, they could use some help. Here’s a Paypal button for donating to them.
A lot of people seem to be getting antsy about a US Army National Guard ad on Monster.com and elsewhere for “Corrections Officer – Internment/Resettlement Specialist“. Speculation and paranoia about what this stupid recruiting ad might mean is getting silly.
Here’s an example:
Want a job putting people into camps?
Look, folks, I’m an anarchist. I specifically advocate the abolition of all government. I’m always in favor of extreme skepticism towards government. However, activists endanger their credibility when they claim something is some sort of “proof” or “smoking gun” when it isn’t.
Yes, we know the US military plans and trains for potential civil insurrection. That’s part of its mission and pretty much always has been. While the possibility should never be dismissed out of hand that some sort of death-camps-for-dissidents scenario is just around the corner, you come across like a complete idiot when you say or imply that something potentially rather mundane proves what are otherwise exotic claims.
The military has prison guards. This is not a new thing. Back in the 80’s when I was a military policeman (MOS 95B) in the US Army Reserve, my drill sergeant in basic training was a military prison guard (MOS 95C). Mean son-of-a-bitch, he was — but that was his job and I signed up for it back then knowing full well what to expect.
Ninety-five charlie has never been a popular MOS. Most of them back then were formerly ninety-five bravo troops that switched for sake of bonuses specific to the job. The way things at DoD have been a particularly chaotic clusterfuck these past few years, it’s no surprise that they are signing up new troops directly into that as their first MOS even though that wasn’t formerly the case.
One of the things we can reasonably suspect is going on here is that there has been, is currently or will be a protracted shakeup within the US Army’s 95C career field as some people are quietly weeded out of it or are following other incentives into other jobs specifically because of the (well deserved) bad press that has come from prisoner abuse at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.
In particular, the shutdown of Gitmo and transfer of prisoners there to CONUS will likely be to several dispersed facilities to avoid having any one big prison capable of drawing much negative public attention. Likely, those multiple facilities will be deliberately over-staffed for reasons of security assurance. That means more people. That means recruiting ads.
I’m against prisons. I’m against the US military. I’m against the US government and all political governments. However, if the freedom movement is going to do as I have urged for several years and start thinking like a resistance movement, that demands self-disciplined thinking and action. That demands studying the field of military intelligence and applying such knowledge to what you do as producers and distributors of revolutionary propaganda. You have to cherish and conserve your credibility as your principal weapon as information warriors. Things are bad enough. You don’t have to lie or seize upon fairy tales. You can’t fight effectively if you have no concept of what military intelligence does in terms of gathering, analysing and verifying information. Learn it. Don’t be stupid and don’t make yourselves look stupid.
