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Looking at America's Police State
By Timothy V. Gatto
02/09/08 "ICH"
-- - Here we are, all primed and pumped for the
Republican Convention. This has given the Democrats lots to talk
about and also an opportunity to skewer McCain and his new
running mate. This doesn’t surprise me, nor does it anger me,
every demeaning thing that is said about GOP has this writer’s
endorsement, they couldn’t pick on a more deserving target. The
only thing that bothers me is their total lack of objectivity
when they criticize what the GOP stands for. It hardly
influences the masses when they harp on McCain’s war drum
beating skills when everyone can observe that Barack Obama’s own
predilection for blasting out a great beat on his own set of
drums with a talent that has greatly improved over the past few
months.
Political analysts and strategy advisers
have grossly underestimated the American people this time. It
has been painfully obvious that most Americans have let Bush and
his henchmen in Congress get away with murder, and I mean that
literally, while so many have been silent and complicit. Our
leaders have no conscience, and hatch their schemes and plan for
conquest, while millions of us wait for a chance to change this
nation’s direction. Sadly, for all of us that are truly paying
attention, we see that real change is only a mirage.
Just as hope cannot be instilled in society by the hopeless,
honesty can not be taught by thieves, and justice can not be
administered by criminals, change will not come from those
locked into the status quo. The American people however, hoping
against reason, tried desperately to believe that one of them
would morph into one of us. It may have been just another time
in the history of man when good would actually triumph over evil
and when reason would replace insanity and we would have a
fairytale ending to this national tragedy we have been
witnessing during the last decade. The facts are, we have been
offered two roads to travel, but they both take us to the same
destination; war for resources and empire for profit.
Americans are a people that are slow to
anger; in this case I am not describing the people, not their
government. The people did not want to enter World War II until
we were attacked directly, and once provoked; the people were
willing to sacrifice all to ensure victory. We are not a nation
of cowards, nor are we a nation of pawns. The mistake that those
in power have made is the mistake of underestimating a cultures
resolve. Once a certain line is crossed, once boundaries have
been overstepped, it is impossible to undo the damage it has
done. I believe that this is what’s happening to both political
parties in America. The two corporate-led political parties have
stepped over the line, both parties have asked Americans to
accept the unacceptable, and both parties have lied to the
people and both have been, unfortunately for them, caught in
their lies.
While the Democrats have been decrying the
war in Iraq, and have portrayed Senator John McCain as the “war
candidate”, Senator Obama has tried to keep the focus on the
economy while moving steadily in the same direction as McCain.
The impassioned speech he gave in Denver was looked at
skeptically by many, not because of what he said, but for what
he failed to say. There was no mention of restoring what we had
lost during the Bush Administration, things such as habeas
corpus and the end of electronic surveillance of citizens or
warrantless searches of homes and property. There was no mention
at all of reviewing the draconian laws put in place by Bush and
Cheney, or the torture that they have been accused of
practicing. There were however, veiled threats against Iran and
Russia, and proposals that the military should grow by 65,000
combat soldiers, 10,000 to be sent to Afghanistan so that we can
prosecute the “right war” there while leaving tens of thousands
of troops in Iraq. This in a time of economic uncertainty when
this country spends more on its military than almost all other
nations on Earth combined.
Obama didn’t skip a beat when he talked
about “Russian aggression”, apparently supporting the lies from
the government and the western corporate-owned media that Russia
was the aggressor in Georgia when the truth was that Georgia
initiated hostilities to regain the autonomous regions. He has
supported Bush and his quest to put nuclear medium range
missiles in Poland as Russia rightly declares that this would
put them in an indefensible position and warned that they would
take military action if this comes to pass. This threat by the
Russians is completely understandable; it is the American
government that is unreasonable. In 1963 we almost went to war
over the same type if missiles being installed in Cuba. When JFK
finally promised we would take out our medium range missiles in
Turkey, war was averted. Now we must sit idly while Bush and
Cheney orchestrate another nuclear crisis, this time America
plays the villain.
We postulate that a nuclear Iran is
unacceptable and that we will embark on a military solution to
make sure that it doesn’t happen. The facts are that the United
States over 18,000 nuclear warheads, most of them multiple
warheads’ (MIRV’s). Iran’s most immediate threat, Israel, has
according to most sources, over 300 nuclear warheads in its
arsenal. This is a prime example of total hypocrisy. If Israel
would agree to dismantle its nuclear weapons and its nuclear
programs, would Iran follow suit? Nobody knows, as this line of
thought has never been vocalized or written about. Do the
majority of American citizens feel that Israel is so important
in the scheme of things that they would rush into a situation
that could very well provoke World War III? Would American
mothers and fathers be willing to sacrifice the lives of their
children to insure that Israel has military superiority over
Iran? I hardly think so, but if you canalize the rhetoric coming
from both political parties in this country, you would think
that we would. The truth is that this nation seems to be willing
to do anything in order to protect Israel, even if it means
starting a thermo-nuclear war.
When it comes to civil liberties and
foreign policy, the difference between the Democrats and the
Republicans seem negligible. When it comes to domestic policy,
we hear Obama say that he will not outsource our industries and
pay workers a fair wage, but when will we hear about support for
the unions? What about stopping the “privatization” of our
resources that has become the mantra of the corporate world, and
when will he propose doing something about the corporate
influence of the media? In this country, where a handful of
corporations control the bulk of newspapers, television and
radio outlets in almost all of our major cities, when will we
hear about a return to Federal regulation? Why do we allow this?
The truth is that we won’t hear about it.
How can we when our media is so thoroughly controlled by so few
corporate interests? Propaganda does not necessarily mean that
governments are the only ones that put it out. This is corporate
propaganda and it is just as detrimental to a free society as
its government cousin. Benito Mussolini once remarked that
“fascism could be called corporatism”. This is nothing new. When
corporations and the government control the media and the
resources in a nation, and the people have no voice, that’s
simply fascism. This is where we find ourselves today.
The people of this country are finding that
out. We have all heard of the police raids on protesters that
occurred Sunday morning in St. Paul before any protests took
place. We have heard about how the police went into houses
occupied by college students, guns drawn, and how they
handcuffed the “suspects” and made them lie face-down for hours.
We have read about the warrantless searches and the confiscation
of computers and other personal items. This was done by police
that didn’t even come from St. Paul!
There were arrests of demonstrators in
Denver also. Some of the same heavy-handed techniques were used
there. Since when do peaceful protesters
deserve this kind of treatment? What’s happening in this
country? When did we lose the right to dissent?
The American people are simply fed-up with
both the Republicans and the Democrats. We are tired of the wars
and the lies. We are tired of the fear tactics and the police
state we are evolving into. The thought of a third-party
candidate winning this election is not so far-fetched as it once
was. It’s
about time.
timgatto@hotmail.com -
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
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