It shows how hard our founders worked to secure a free republic. They fought hard for our rights because they knew what oppression felt like. And since then we Americans have had a proud tradition of upholding our freedoms.
Until now.
Read this slim little book by Naomi Wolf. It paints a very real picture of just how much our republic is at risk today.
And what really stunning? How fast America, the home of freedom and open society, has opened the door for dictatorship.
No go with me here. I'm not being an alarmist. And neither is Wolf.
Did you know that a recent law gives George Bush himself, as president, the authority to jail anyone for any reason without having to explain why or tell where that person went?
Did you know that this administration has spent tremendous effort to make it "legal" to torture in the United States. Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib?
Did you know Guantanamo is a secret prison that practices torture and flagrantly operates outside of the Geneva Conventions which are guidelines established for the treatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war and are ratified by the US and 46 other nations?
Did you know that people are held right now at Guantanamo without the right to habeas corpus - the legal right to seek relief from unlawful detention for yourself or another person?
It's not just "terrorists" who can be sent to Guantanamo. It's any of us. And they - the government - decide who the terrorists are and they don't have to tell you why.
Did you know that the Bush administration has created a paramilitary force (Blackwater) and has passed laws making it legal to surveil ordinary citizens, like you and me, without a warrant?
Don't you remember how it all maybe seemed plausible? We were horrified by 9/11. An evil power aimed at dismantling our way of life.
Bremmer. Cheney. Rumsfeld. They stormed in. Congress rolled over...wasn't this what we were supposed to do to protect ourselves?
We went to Iraq. Iraq? OK they had weapons of mass destruction. Except they didn't. Except the administration mindfully lied and orchestrated the truth. And we let them.
And then General Tommy Franks and the entire US military leadership resigned and walked out of Iraq? That even our best soldiers found what was happening reprehensible? And we let them.
Remember how shocking...SHOCKING...it was when it was revealed we had secret prisons? And somehow it's less shocking now.
This slow and steady and LEGAL erosion of a democracy has happened before. Just read the history of how Nazism rose. It rose legally out of a democracy. Little by little by little the Germans let it happen. And eventually their freedoms were so undermined, when the really bad guys stepped in there was no stopping them. Anyone could be taken. Everyone was afraid.
So now just voting for a different President isn't enough. We have to undo the steps that have been taken to unravel our freedoms. We need to be vigilant. We need to be like John Adams. We need to take risks and stand up for out rights.
Shame on Bush. Shame on Cheney. Shame on them all.
But ultimately shame on us for squandering our incredible country.
We are Americans. We need to start acting like it.
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