A Dangerous Time in America

They say that history is bound to repeat itself if we do not learn from it. It would seem to me that we did not learn from the 1950's era of McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the witch hunts that followed.

I have just finished watching the movie "Good Night, and Good Luck"
and it got me thinking. In addition to be a very good film it is also very historically correct drawing much of it's content from actual footage of McCarthy. When I saw the way that people were being accused of Communism the moment that they attempted to stand up to McCarthy or his methods it made me think of Bush and his tactics. With that in mind let us review what it is I mean.

McCarthy would accuse anyone who questioned him of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer and would subject them to ridicule, the destruction of their careers, and even questioning by his committee on the ties to Communism. The majority of the time the accusations were based on rumors, incorrect intelligence, and straight mis-information or lies.

Let us now leap to the current. Those individual who attempt to stand up to the Bush administration, especially early on in the "War on Terrorism" are labeled either Un-Patriotic, Terrorist, or Terrorist sympathizer. Although lately it has become easier for people to step up to Bush and question his actions even now those that attempt to are simply met with a wall of silence, lies, and secrecy.

I make this comparison only to spur thought before moving on to the real issue at hand. Recently the issue of the Bush administration spying on the American people has gotten a lot of air time, as it should, with the majority of people being against such actions, and a good deal being outraged by them. Prior to this coming out the major questions being asked were in regards to Bush's methods when it came to those who disagreed with him at speeches, appearances, and other events. Prior to that it was his handling of the Iraq war and the lack of, and misinformation given to the American people. Also the same issue regarding the "war on terror." Before that, and currently, was the debate over the Patriot Act and the many rights it stripped away. Laced in between all of this was the debates over torture, the right to privacy, gay marriage rights, abortion rights, the right to die, the supreme court justice nominees, and possibly some I am missing.

Now all of these things have been covered in great detail by the main stream media individually. And everytime a new issue regarding our rights pops up the media is all over it for a week or two and then it seems to disappear. What I am not seeing reported on as much by the main stream media, although it is getting some air time mostly by people who would be considered left wing, is the massive power grab occurring right now in this country and the danger it poses to our way of life.

If you look at each of these issues individually they are all bad enough in of themselves. However when you combine them, when you begin to study the pattern that they leave, they paint a very scary picture. Over the course of the last 5 or 6 years the Bush administration has slowly but consistently increased their control over the government while at the same time taking away key rights of the American people. Many would say that what I will imply later in this post is impossible, that they could not have gotten away with it, but they have. They have used fear to manipulate the American people into allowing them to simply do as they wished. They used the most basic human fear, death. They showered us with threats of terrorism, and WMD's. Every time we started to doubt their actions another "close call" would occur. Every time people began asking questions the terror alert would suddenly rise and people would simply follow their fearless leader whatever was asked. We bought duct tape and plastic to protect against biological warfare. We set aside emergency rations in case we were trapped for days after a terrorist attack. But the worst thing we did was hand away our rights. What follows is a description of what has occurred and how it will soon come to blow up in our face if we do not wake up and start demanding our rights back.

Edward R. Murrow during his long career said two things which I find to be of utmost importance even today.

1) "We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility." - From the March 9, 1954, "See It Now" television broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy.

2) "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. "

In addition to these confirmed quotes in the movie about his life he was also reported has saying, regarding McCarthy, something along the lines of "he did not create the fear, he simply used it."

Now I am sure you can understand why I say that the first two quotes are important in today's atmosphere of mistrust and fear in which our rights our being stripped away. The third is important in that it is precisely what the Bush administration has done as well.

On September 11, 2001 a tradgedy struck on American soil, and subsequently drove our great nation into a state of fear unlike anything we had ever known. Although we had seen terrorist attacks on the news they had always been in far off countries, and although we had has some here none even came close to the intensity of this attack, and none had shown the true vunarabilty of our nation. We had always felt safe, protected against the dangers of the world. No one could attack us, we were the mighty United States, who would dare, and then it happened. And all of the sudden the mighty United States was no safer than anywhere else in the world.

It was then that George W. Bush began on the road that has led us to the dangerous situation that we find ourselves in now. I do not subscribe to the conspiracy theories that say that Bush, or any of his cronies, had anything to do with the attack. Bin Ladin committed this atrocity, that much is known fact, but Bush did continue the terror. See the attack in itself was enough to scare us for a while, but Americans are tough, we would have been back to normal in a short time, simply remebering the tragic event and those who lost their lives, but not being scared anymore. We would have gone after those responsible, caught them, brought them to justice, and moved on with our lives. That is one of the great things about our country, we don't give in easily.

But Bush had other plans. He saw an opportunity. He new that the fear that was caused by this attack could be capitalized to ensure not only his own future political gain, but the beginning of a new era in American government, which I will explain soon.

He (when I use the words his, he, Bush, or they I am referring to Bush and his administration, it is simply easier to type these words rather than The Bush Admin everytime.) capitalized on the fear caused by the attacks to set into motion the largest power grab in the history of our country.

The first major action taken after the attack was the declaration of war against Afghanistan, this is one of the few that I actually agree with. Afghanistan was harboring Bin Ladin and every option was exercised prior to attacking. But then things went awry.

Soon after the attack on Afghanistan the Patriot Act was signed into effect and the Department of Homeland Security was formed. This was the first major step in the power grab that would eventually put us in our current situation. This bill was signed by all but one member of Congress and was not challenged in any way. Why? The same reason a lot more would occur in the near future, fear. The bill was passed as a way to combat terrorism to prevent another 9/11. It was not until after it was law that people began to realize the rights that it gave away including Amendments 1, 4, 5, & 6 of the United States Constitution.

The first major use of the powers that I have been able to find was the arrest and subsequent holding of Jose Padilla who was held from 2002 until 2005 without being charged of a crime. I am sure that their were other cases that I cannot remeber and cannot find, but you get the point.

It was shortly after the forming of the DHLS that the "Terror Alert" was started. This, as I am sure you all remember, was a gauge by which we could see what the current state of terror was. It range from green to red with the average for a long time being either yellow or orange. It became obvious soon after it's debut that it would go up anytime people began to relax their fears of terrorism. During this time we would hear reports of FBI and CIA warnings of possible terrorist attacks involving everything from more planes, to bio weapons, to subway bombs, but never anything conclusive, just enough to keep us scared. We also had the anthrax scare, which turned out not to be terrorist at all.

And all this time we were also hearing one other thing, Iraq was a major threat. Of course people listened because they were scared. They believed that the WMD's were real because they were scared. They believed that Saddam was a threat because they were scared, and when Bush decided to attack in March of 2003 they followed because they were scared. Those that opposed were labeled unpatriotic and even supporters of terrorism. Groups like Peace Fresno
were labeled possible terrorist threats and spied on. Protestors were ridiculed by the administration. And worst of all the real threat, Bin Ladin, was forgotten. The official war ended only three weeks after the first shot was fired. In reality as we all know it continues to this day. As revelations came to light that there were no WMD's as U.N. officials urged us to believe before we attacked, the reasons for the war changed, eventually coming back to the one thing that no one would challenge, Saddam was linked to terrorism and was a threat to our national security, this has since be shown to be untrue but the admin. continues to support this claim.

Over the next three years leading to today many things occurred. First the right to investigate individuals library records started to be used. Hundreds, maybe thousands of peoples privacy was invaded and no one said anything because they were afraid, and Bush said that this would stop future attacks.

Then people who questioned his tacticts were question about possible terrorist activities, and no one said anything because they were scared, and Bush said this would prevent attacks.

It also came to light during this time that groups like the ACLU, Green Peace, and others had been spied on. Although their was outrage by some for a while most stayed quite because they were still afraid.

Then it was revealed that people were being tortured by American Troops and not only did people stay quite but many supported it because they were afraid, and Bush said the info could stop attacks.

Then the really crazy stuff started happening. First during the Schiavo case the GOP run congress made an unprecedented move in overturning a Supreme Court Ruling, something not allowed in the Constitution. Then a new Chief Justice and Justice were appointed to the Supreme Court, both opposed by the Democratic party for their far right fews and for fear that they would support Bush over the Constitution, something which is already coming to pass with a case regarding Abortion. Also Alberto Gonzalez was appointed Attorney General, and promptly stated that torture should be allowed, a statement supported by Bush.

When the Democratic Congressman attempted to filibuster the GOP Congress made another unprecedented move and threatened to vote to turn over the filibuster, something that would chang two centuries of Senate precedent and rewrite the constitutional definition of "advise and consent."

Most recently has been the revelation that Bush condoned spying on the American people by the NSA. Stripping away one more right of the American people. There is a lively discussion on this topic available two places on Jim Leach's AbeLog, the discussion began here http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6133156&postID=113926406659800895
and ended here http://www.blogger.com/comment.gblogID=6133156&postID=113978143596953755 (near the bottom of both)

There are many things I missed I am sure and I apologize, but I was giving only a brief summary. The result however is the important thing.

At this point in time the Executive branch has more power than at any other time in history. We also have a Judicial branch which is little more than a group of pawns for Bush and the Executive Branch. Congress likewise seems to be little more than pawns, although this could change. In addition to this the rights of the American people have been slowly remove and at this point what rights we do have are in question from one day to the next. We still seem to have a suedo version of free speech, as long as we don't upset the administration to much, although that along with most of our other important rights seem to be up for grabs.

What does this mean for us. Well simply put if we don't stand up and let the Administration, Supreme Court, and Congress know that we will not allow them to take away the rights that we hold dear in this country, soon enough we won't have any. The reason that the Constitution had checks and balances was to ensure that no one person or group could become to powerful. By limiting the powers granted to one branch you ensured that all three branches had to work in unison to affect any major changes or actions. The idea being that if one of the branches was not acting in the best interest of the country the others would stop it. We no longer have those checks and balances. The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches are all controlled by Bush. This is very dangerous as he could quite literally do just about anything he pleases; as long as we do not wake up and do something about it that is.

This brings me to my earlier statement that many would not believe what I am saying possible and that Bush wants a new era of government. Bush is not a classic Conservative. Meaning that were most Conservatives want a small government, Bush wants a large government. He would like to see government controlling every aspect of a persons life it seems. Why? Because he truly believes that he is on a mission from God, one that is very dangerous to our freedoms. He is not alone either, Neo Cons as they have been labeled, are a new group of conservatives best described here.

It is not to late to stand up for our rights however. This can be done only one way. We must speak out about our concerns. We have to let Congress know that we do not want any more of our rights trampled on and that those which have been removed must be given back. Congress is the one area of government that we can change in the near future, and that gives us power. That is the final Check and Balance. Congress holds elections every two years, and that two years is coming up. That ensures that the people always have the option of installing new leadership if the current leadership is unwilling to do the will of the people. We have to remind Congress that they work for US not Bush. Call your Government Reps and tell them that if they will not stand up for your rights then you will elect someone who will. If we are not willing to take this simple step to protect our freedoms then we do not deserve them. Throughout our history people have given their lives in order to protect our freedoms, all we have to do is give five minutes of our time to call or write our representatives. It is easy to say that one phone call will not do anything, but what about a hundred, or a thousand. Call, and then tell your family and friends to call. I guarantee that if the people of this country take action we will keep our freedoms, however if we don't, we won't. Do not mistake this as a call to elect Democrats either, plenty of them have not stood up the Bush administration as well. Whether you plan on electing new Democrats, Republicans, Third Pary Reps, or Independents into office if the current officials don't do their job and work for the People of this country, let them know. You can get you officials number at www.congress.org

Throughout history there have been times when those who believe in freedom and justice have had to stand up and fight for what they believed in. We are blessed in that we do not yet have to fight, but simply put action to our words, let us not wait until it is to late.