July 25th / 27th, 2008
"Freedoms Lessen as Watch List Grows"
We’ve endured a lot under George Bush.
First it was the stolen election of 2000.
Then came the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Next was denial of global warming and obstructing development of alternate
sources of energy.
That was followed by leaving thousands of poor people stranded in the wake
of hurricane Katrina, and the outing of a CIA operative.
Those of us who recognize Bush as the worst President in history could only
hope that his final year in office would be less destructive.
But this year may be the worst of W’s term, and that’s saying a lot.
That’s because 2008 has seen our nation reach a number of dubious
milestones:
- The death toll for U.S. soldiers in Iraq reached 3,000.
- Gasoline prices reached $4 per gallon.
- and, the number of homes worth less than their mortgage balance reached 10
million, suggesting that we might not be far from a depression.
- And, as if all this isn’t bad enough, following a Senate vote to authorize
wiretaps without warrants, the ACLU announced last week that the Government
watch list for terrorists had reached 1 million names.
One of those names belonged to Drew Griffin, a correspondent for CNN.
On May 19, Griffin did a series of reports that were critical of the
Transportation Safety Administration. Since then he has been detained by airport
officials eleven times because TSA had mysteriously and coincidentally tagged
Griffin as a threat to security.
Attorney James Robinson has experienced similar problems. A democrat who
served both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Robinson was told by authorities
that he has the exact same name as someone who is suspected of terrorist
leanings.
Robinson filled out all of the required paperwork to have his name removed
from the Terrorist watch List, but so far, no response. That was three years
ago.
This is not the first time that our government has tagged innocent people as
dangers to homeland security. Joe McCarthy blacklisted people as communists
just because they refused to cooperate with his witch hunts. And Richard
Nixon had his famous “Enemies List”, although that was more about paranoia than
actually violating the rights of citizens.
But Bush’s growing Terrorist Watch List, and the government’s new found
power to wiretap without a warrant are the icing on a poisonous cake that has
been baking for 7 years.
We as Americans can withstand a lot of adversity, but we should never stand
for our fundamental rights to be violated. What we have tolerated from the
Bush clan is unparalleled in the history of free nations. The French
stormed the Bastille for less, and our forefathers broke from England for less.
I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way we became a
nation of sheep. We would never think of impeaching Bush, much less overthrowing
the government. We just sit back and recite the brainless, far right
mantra, “if it means protecting our freedom, it’s worth giving up a few rights”.
These are frightening times in which we live, but the threats to our
freedoms aren’t coming from foreign terrorists. Instead, they are coming from the
White House and Congress.
232 years ago we broke with one government to form a new one simply because
we had no control over how our taxes were levied or spent.
Thomas Jefferson suggested that such a break would be needed from time to
time in order to preserve our freedoms. He even thought that the spilling of
blood would be necessary.
So I wonder what Jefferson would say about a nation in which its elected
officials receive free healthcare, but it’s citizens don’t. In which the
federal government enables large corporations to profit off the backs of the less
fortunate. In which
thousands of soldiers are sent to foreign lands to die to ensure those
profits.
In which any citizen can be detained, his home invaded, and his reputation
ruined
without recourse. Hell, taxation without representation is the least of
our worries these days.
Some pundits refer to Presidential elections as bloodless revolutions,
because
they can result in the peaceful, legal overthrow of one administration for
another.
The problem is that neither McCain nor Obama offer any hope of substantive
change from our current corrupted political system.
That’s why the closest we may come to spilling blood is electing a radical
thinker like Ralph Nader. Short of that, we’re in for four more years of
abuses from our federal government.
In the meantime, we must purge the Terrorist Watch List of everyone who isn’t
a terrorist. But what are the odds of that happening? Probably about a
million to one.
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