It is the United States government I am afraid of. In less than two years the Bush administration has used the attacks of 9/11 to manipulate our fear of terrorism and desire for revenge into a blank check to blatantly pursue imperialist objectives internationally and to begin the rollback of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and most of the advances of the 20th century.

I couldnt agree more.

Dear..dear...what a turgid piece of partisan drivel.
HUAC...the Senator from West Virginia? This is something new??
No evidence beyond generalisation..just nothing.
"Jill Nelson" eh? A name, obviously NOT to watch out for.
Still, she does avoid cliche's like the plague..ho ho..
dear...dear....dear

But we really should contemplate writing to Mike Rivero and offering him a royalty on the amount of cut'n'paste ripping-off, straight from "What Really Happened", that we are so fortunate to have on ATS.

A dictonary definition of terrorist is:
A person who uses violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims.

If this is ture, then G dubba Bush, his regime and America could be viewed as Terrorist's, their actions as terrorism. No wonder American's fear their own Government. The theology behind this war, (war on terrorism) is completely F----ed up, not to mention Hypocritical.

American's ignorantly believe that they have the greatest political system in the world. One that the rest of the world should follow and adopt. If this is true Darwin must be turning in his grave, millions of years of evoloution and natural selection, and "the greatest country" in the world elects an ape in to office.

American's should be scared.

Well chosen, Thomas: nice to see balance (dear lady really ought to be careful distinguishing her pederasts from her pedophiles, though -"suspected" or otherwise).

it's not liberty anymore, it's persecution.

when we get a 'radical' idea, or an idea not accepted by the right wing, a person is labeled a terrorist, or a radical, or left wing, and has his/her credibility shot. why is this allowed? it's the same thing as mccarthyism in the 5o's.

if i said the government is taking away our freedom, and that the laws made to restrict our ability to speak on what we want should change, how fast would i be put down?

if i decided to rally for a change in the patriot act, how long before i am to be arrested?

why are we even able to ask these questions? is it not cause for concern, that if we the people want to change the way we live, we can't do it, if that's freedom, then
bound me in the tightest chains of liberty!!!

LOL. Ain't that a bit of hypocritical writing?
If the guy fears his own government so much, why write an article and publish it? Rather defeats the purpose doesn't it?

But it's easy for a person to be critical of a government when he sits in a nice warm house, with food on the table, money from a job and a social system that protects him from the part of the world that wants to kill him.

I'd say the very fact that the author wrote this, proves that he is living in a dreamworld. You don't fear a government and then write such crap unless you have the sense of some sort of security and know that you're free to write what you want.

Fear the terrorists less? Maybe this idiot should go take a walk around Northern Pakistan. I guarantee that he'll learn the meaning of fear there.

Nobody is being labelled a traitor or anti-American, it just seems that the left is wanting to be labelled that so they may yell "I'm a victim! I'm a victim!!" If they don't get it, they'll give it to thermselves and blame others for it.

There's no persecution to be found, not against the left-wingers, anyway. Don't let the perceived dominance of conservatism fool you, it only dominates in the civilian population. Liberalism still controls the media, the education system and the court system. I don't think the poor, downtrodden liberal will be strung up on any courthouse lawns in the near future.

In other words, think for yourself.

I couldn't resist, see you guys an a couple more days.
Unfortunetly as I started to type this something came up. Grrrrr!

Bobbers,
I have never said an untoward word regarding your objectivity -other than urging you to get rid of it!
The appalling Ritter has no more books to sell -end of Ritter. ( but let us not forget his press in his good days).
As for Estragon's juvenile pedantry re "paedo-" and etymology, not for public discussion; but one is -for me -worse than the other: though both are sins against God, man and the Holy Ghost.
An ill-conceived Estragonism.
Other than that - keep in there with that sabre, m'boy.

My dear Thos, a good salvo of armour-piercing there.
When you can scream loudly (after make-up and with your agent present) on your Uncle Mort's radio show, that you're being persecuted: you ain't being persecuted.
No one will ever hear the persecuted, cyber-chums: they don't get air-play.

It is important to remember that the Nazis created a "shadow government" in Germany even as the "democratic" Weimar constitution continued to operate in theory. Hitler at first implemented his programmes through the constitution, using existing government agencies and departments. Later he set up Nazi Party bureaus that duplicated the functions of the Weimar government, allowing the latter to remain in place but without power, while the Nazi bureaus (especially the SS, and of course Hitler himself) held the actual power. The Communist Party in Russia created a similar invisible government after the Bolshevik revolution, leaving the revolutionary constitution as well as the government bureaucracy in place while Communist Party agencies and the General Secretary wielded the real power.

If the tendancy toward social breakdown continues in the advanced industrial nations, it's not difficult to conceive of voters electing overtly authoritarian, right-wing administrations campaigning on law and order platforms. In the face of widespread rioting, looting, and mayhem (especially if it spilled over from the ghettos and threatened the suburbs), reactionary hysteria could propel authoritarian types into both the executive and legislative branches of government. The "middle classes" (i.e. professionals, small business people and so on) would then support charismatic martial style leaders who promised to restore law and order, particularly if they were men with impressive military or police credentials.

Once elected, and with the support of willing legislatures and courts, authoritarian administrations could easily create much more extensive mechanisms of invisible government than already exist, giving the executive branch virtually dictatorial powers. Such administrations could also vastly increase government control of the media, implement martial law, escalate foreign militarism, further expand the funding and scope of the police, national guard units, secret police and foreign intelligence agencies, and authorise more widespread surveillance of citizens as well as the infiltration of dissident political groups. Random searches and seizures, curfews, government control of all organised meetings, harassment or outright banning of groups that disagreed with or attempted to block government policies, and the imprisonment of political dissidents and others judged to be dangerous to national security would then become routine.

These developments would not occur all at once, but so gradually, imperceptibly, and logically given the need to maintain law and order that most people would not even be aware that an authoritarian take over was underway.

Indeed, it is already underway in the US...............