Rescuing America from tyranny
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
Aug. 10, 2004
Two-hundred and twenty-eight years ago, America’s founding fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
In the beginning, some men were more equal than others, and women weren’t even mentioned. So it was far from perfect freedom our founding fathers fought for. Still, they answered the call to arms and fought for more freedom than they'd had.
They pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They created a new nation, and gave America the beginnings of freedom.
Since then, in wartime and in peace, brave soldiers and sailors have defended this nation, preserving America’s freedoms for each successive generation. And America’s freedoms have grown -- the slaves have been freed, women’s rights have been recognized, and the nation has inched closer to achieving its cherished ideals -- thanks to hundreds of years of hard work by many, many liberals.
The lesson to be gleaned from America's history of freedom should be obvious: Freedom works best when it's shared. Liberty and justice is not just for some people, it's for all. Letting more and more people have more freedom has made America better, stronger, greater.
But from the day in 2000 when they sued to stop votes from being counted, virtually everything the Bush-Cheney administration has done has been an affront to freedom.
The Bush administration has quietly ended habeas corpus, granting unprecedented powers to Bush alone. Solely on his say-so, Americans can be -- and have been -- imprisoned without trial, without proof, without involving any lawyers or any law, without due process and without any recourse.
Is that what America's founders, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, fought for? Is that what our men and women in the military are risking their lives to protect?
Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Director, has proposed that the government should reconsider posse comitatus, more than a century of tradition and law keeping the military from acting as police in America. In the event of a terrorist attack, Ridge wants troops to have the power to make arrests and, if necessary, fire their weapons at Americans on US soil.
He has authorized using demographic and marketing data to establish whether individual US air passengers are "rooted in the community," and flagging suspect passengers for further review and interrogation. The long-term plan is to expand such passenger screening to rail and bus travelers as well.
Beginning in January 2004, all visitors to the US from nations deemed as terrorist-friendly have been required to have their fingerprints and photographs taken for DHS files. The rule now affects about 27,000,000 passengers annually, and is expected to be expanded.
Under DHS guidelines, credentialed journalists from friendly nations are now required to show a special "press visa." In several instances, reporters with otherwise valid visas have been detained at US airports or even deported.
When the President or Vice President speaks, everyone in the audience has been pre-screened. Attendees must provide ID in advance. Their backgrounds are checked by federal agents, and they're required to sign a pledge of support for Bush-Cheney's re-election. To express an opinion or carry a sign during a Presidential or Vice Presidential visit, Americans must stand behind fences far from Bush or Cheney, in areas designated by police as “free speech zones.”
Free speech zones -- chew on that for a moment. Have American soldiers fought and died for “free speech zones,” for your right to speak freely behind barbed-wire topped fences? Did you pledge allegiance to “free speech zones”?
Of course, no-one could argue with a straight face that Bill Clinton, the first George Bush, or Ronald Reagan were at the forefront of the fight for freedom. At best, they were indifferent caretakers -- freedom and civil rights were less important to them than other policy pursuits. And we have no illusions that John Kerry would sincerely care about such things.
George W. Bush, however, has accomplished so many rollbacks and reductions in freedom, one can only assume that the fight against freedom is one of his top priorities. Maybe it's #1. If there's a unifying theme to Bush-Cheney policies, it's that they tend to reduce, not expand, people's rights and freedoms. In just three and a half years, it has been breathtaking and heartbreaking to see what they've accomplished toward these repressive goals.
Bush-Cheney et al speak often of “traditional American values,” but the tradition of freedom isn't what they value. Their "traditional values" are code words, meaning support for laws against gay marriage, laws against abortion, laws against sex and violence in art and entertainment.
These are their "traditional values" -- reductions in freedom for gay people, women, and artists. Gay people are entitled to equal rights (provided they become heterosexuals). Women are free (so long as men agree with women's choices). Movies and music fall under the First Amendment's freedom of speech (so long as the movies or music are virtuous).
If Bush and Cheney are rewarded with a second term, it seems reasonable to expect White House policies would lurch even further, perhaps much farther from liberty and justice for all. With no need to keep an eye to the next election, what's to hold them back?
In a second Bush-Cheney term, the Constitution will be eroded at a quicker pace. There will probably be another war or two, another several thousand dead American soldiers. Judicial nominees will be less "moderate" than in Bush's first term, when most have been far, far to the right of mainstream Americans. There will be even less oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission ... and even more oversight from the Department of Homeland Security. In a second term, expect the same as we've already seen from Bush-Cheney -- only much more so.
Does anyone remember the day the World Trade Center went boom? The Bush administration seems to have forgotten.
In the immediate aftermath of After September 11, Bush said, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
Eighteen months later, with bin Laden’s whereabouts still unknown, he said, "I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
Osama bin Laden is not America's priority. Think about that.
While the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered, Bush and Cheney lobbied ferociously against any and every call for an investigation. When an investigation couldn’t be blocked, Bush-Cheney gave the September 11 Commission a minuscule budget, and insisted on hand-picking its members. The Bush administration demanded the right to edit the final report, then dragged their feet about providing evidence. Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath, or without each other.
We dare anyone with a half-open mind to read some of the un-asked and un-answered questions of September 11, and say with a straight face that there’s been an honest investigation. For anyone who’s been following the facts as they’ve hesitantly unfolded, the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the September 11 Commission’s report is that it’s a sequel to the Warren Report.
How’s your war going? As of this morning, 931 American soldiers have given their lives in a war without reason, conquering and occupying Iraq -- a nation that was no threat to America. These soldiers are, of course, disproportionately poor, and minorities, and Reservists.
Was it worth 931 American soldiers’ lives to pull Saddam Hussein out of a hole in the ground, while the people who attacked New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11 got away with mass murdering 3,000 Americans? Remember, none of culprits behind September 11 were Iraqis. Iraq had nothing to do with it.
Is America safer? We've spent more than $200 billion to topple two Middle Eastern countries, killing more than 50,000 Iraqis and Afghans. Terrorist activity is now at an all-time high, and it’s going to get worse. It goes without saying, some of the furious friends, family, and countrymen of the dead will find ways to exact vengeance. Far from making America “safe,” these invasions have simply spawned new generations of terrorists. We’ll still be reaping repercussions in fifty years, as Americans as yet unborn are kidnapped or killed by people who hate America -- and hate America quite understandably, if you look at it from their perspective.
Bush and his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, have given tacit permission to torture prisoners. At Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other prisons you’ve never heard of, it’s far worse than the media has reported. The Bush administration is trying their damnedest to keep the true scope of it under wraps (including the systematic rape of Iraqi children, among other atrocities) at least until after the election. When the truth finally does come out, the delay and cover-up will only add to the anger other nations justifiably feel.
Already, more people across the globe hate America than ever before in history. That is President Bush’s “signature achievement.”
Further, Bush’s trashing of the Geneva Conventions increases the chances that American GIs captured in future wars will be tortured by America’s future enemies. If the new American warfare is played without rules of war, future tyrants will accept those terms, as Bush has.
Incredibly, some Americans laugh it off, as if wars without rules are AOK, or as if torture is nothing to worry about. As if a government that tortures its enemies from Fallujah and Baghdad won't eventually find enemies to torture at home, in Ohio or Oregon or New Jersey.
When they're not committing battery and assault on freedom, the Bush-Cheney administration is working overtime to escalate secrecy in government, making sure we the people are blocked from knowing what "our" government does. Or simply telling flat-out whoppers about what they've done.
Under the guise of “protecting America,” the Bush administration has crafted a color coded terror chart, and announced vague “terror threats” with little or no specific information. Curiously, there's a fresh terror alert whenever Bush’s poll numbers begin to dip.
Tom Ridge, Bush’s man in charge of “homeland security,” has suggested that Americans should buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal homes and offices in the event of a chemical attack. Does that make you feel safer?
A day doesn't go by without an astounding affront to truth, justice, and the American way from Bush-Cheney, or from some state or local office following Bush-Cheney's lead. We try to highlight the most outrageous of these on our front page, but despite our best efforts we undoubtedly miss most of the bad news. There are simply too many horrific events to keep track of.
We love this nation, and we believe in its ideals. We're patriots, and patriots do not support the obliteration of the Constitution. Patriots understand that waving a flag doesn't make it OK to violate every principle that makes America great, or send US troops to fight and kill and die for no good reason. Patriots believe in American rights and freedom, and oppose tyrants who take rights and freedoms away.
Anyone who loves this nation should be ashamed of what Bush-Cheney have done to it. And yet, polls show that about half of Americans still support Bush-Cheney.
Of all the ongoing atrocities, that's the one that frightens us most.
What would Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or John Hancock say about the conniving criminals in charge of America in 2004? What would they say about the collaborating Congress -- Republicans and Democrats who have cooperated and allowed this to happen?
We sincerely believe that our founding fathers would recognize the present-day US of A as what they were rebelling against, not at all what they were rebelling for.
We believe any principled patriot would ask President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the members of Congress who have supported them to do the only honorable thing -- resign. And if these present-day leaders ran for re-election instead, we believe Americans of 1776 would reach for their muskets.
But this is not a call to arms. We're not at that moment, yet. And if we want to avoid that moment, we the people must make ourselves heard -- so this is a call to stand up and start shouting.
Tell your friends, tell your family, tell co-workers and strangers: America is in grave danger. Our freedoms are being stashed behind barbed-wire fences, in "free speech zones." We've been manipulated into a phony war, by a fictitious president. Precious liberties earned by the blood of Americans have been quietly snatched.
Americans have fought for freedom all through American history, to bring more freedom to more people, not to take freedoms away. More freedom is America's greatest tradition, passed along from Jefferson and Franklin to Abe Lincoln, to Rosa Parks ... to you and me and millions more who believe in freedom.
If we the people deserve to be called Americans -- in the best sense of that word -- then now is time to raise a ruckus, and take this nation back to its founding principles. It's about freedom, remember?
Silence is acquiescence. Silence is letting ignorance go un-answered, and letting America go un-defended.
Now is the time to sound the alarm, just like Paul Revere. But this time the enemy isn't coming, like the British were. This time, the enemy is already here -- in power, and running for re-election.
© 2004, by the author.
What do you think?
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We love this nation, and we believe in its ideals.
We're patriots, and patriots do not support the obliteration of the Constitution.
Patriots understand that waving a flag doesn't make it OK to violate every principle that makes America great, or send US troops to fight and kill and die for no good reason.
Patriots believe in American rights and freedom, and oppose tyrants who take rights and freedoms away.
Anyone who loves this nation should be ashamed of what Bush-Cheney have done to it.
And yet, polls show that about half of Americans still support Bush-Cheney.
Of all the ongoing atrocities, that's the one that frightens us most.
What would Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or John Hancock say about the conniving criminals in charge of America in 2004?
What would they say about the collaborating Congress -- Republicans and Democrats who have cooperated and allowed this to happen?
We sincerely believe that our founding fathers would recognize the present-day US of A as what they were rebelling against, not at all what they were rebelling for.
We believe any principled patriot would ask President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the members of Congress who have supported them to do the only honorable thing -- resign.
And if these present-day leaders ran for re-election instead, we believe Americans of 1776 would reach for their muskets.
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When the President or Vice President speaks, everyone in the audience has been pre-screened.
Attendees must provide ID in advance, have their backgrounds checked by federal agents, and sign a pledge of support for Bush-Cheney's re-election.
To express an opinion or carry a sign during a Presidential or Vice Presidential visit, Americans must stand behind fences far from Bush or Cheney, in areas designated by police as “free speech zones.”
Free speech zones -- chew on that for a moment.
Have American soldiers fought and died for “free speech zones,” for your right to speak freely behind barbed-wire topped fences?
Did you pledge allegiance to “free speech zones”?
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The Bush administration has quietly ended habius corpus, granting unprecedented powers to Bush alone.
Solely on his say-so, Americans can be -- and have been -- imprisoned without trial, without proof, without involving any lawyers or any law, without due process and without any recourse.
Is that what America's founders, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, fought for?
Is that what our men and women in the military are risking their lives to protect?
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