I could be arrested for these words. I really could. I'm an American citizen, supposedly the freest nation on Earth, and I could be thrown in Gitmo for what I'm about to say.
Actually, it doesn't matter where I'm  from at all, because even if I move to the UK or nearly anywhere else, I can still be arrested by the US government and kidnapped.
Do I sound like an alarmist? If you haven't been paying attention, probably. If you haven't, think about what I'm saying, and check it out. Research it. Legit news agencies are writing about it around the world. Respected organizations such as Amnesty International are writing about it.
I'm so angry right now I can hardly see straight. We're a shell of what we once were. The face of America has changed for the worse, and there's a big 'ol zit on America's face named George Walker Bush. And an even bigger one is half hidden under the hairline named Richard Cheney.
I can't believe we've fallen so far in less than a decade. It makes my heart hurt and my soul cringe.
     We lie.
We torture.
We kidnap people from other countries because the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit it!
We've put aside the proper legalities—and you know there's trouble when a nation RULED by laws puts them aside. Either you're in deep shit or we are. Sometimes both.
The fact that this government (as if there's that much difference between one and the next) has lied to us so much and so often and so badly infuriates me.
There. I said it. Take me to jail now. Let me rot in Gitmo or one of the secret camps without contact with my family and legal assistance, now that I'm a *gasp* political dissident!
I've shown dissatisfaction with the government, and those poor firemen didn't even have to tell the government they heard me! Take me away now, before my ideas spread!
Heavens forfend I share this with the sheep that most people have become, ready and willing to be lead. Focused more on what happens to Brittany Spears or Anna Nicole's baby by whoever it was than on things that really matter—how we fight terrorism or what the president said today about that one country.
Yeah, Iran I think it's called. Another country that takes away its dissidents. Gitmo or Evin. Either way, I'm fucked, so to speak.
We've become no better than the people we're suppose to be fighting. We stared into the abyss, and we became it. We fought monsters and took on their form and tactics. Because only a monster can inflict agony on another living being purposefully.
I still can't get over the Iran thing. They knew in 2003? But kept pushing it? Good God, America can't do a three-front war! We'd collapse!
To even try, they'd have to reinstate the draft. Which is political suicide.
Not that I suspect we'd be having elections at that point. I bet Cheney would declare a state of emergency and make the Simian Shrubbery into a de-facto dictator. Which mean ix-nay on the '08 elections. So it wouldn't matter.
This is why they'd cart me off. Even if you don't believe me, I'm planting seeds of doubt in your mind. Next time Shrub says something, you might think twice about believing him.
Yes, Iraq is getting better, but that won't last one cotton-picking minute if we were to go to war with Iran. Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan would be flooded with recruits from around the world, itching to kill American soldiers.
Am I frightened of the  government? You bet. Especially with the Shrub and Cheney at the helm. Cheney is the puppet-master, and Bush is controlled by strings. And I think that we'll see that soon. Because either Bush is a terrible liar or Cheney gives him a script and keeps him in the dark and he really didn't know about the Iran NIA. In which case he ought to be impeached for criminal stupidity.
I was amazed and then amused when the government's legal guerrillas told the UK that the US was allowed to kidnap its citizens more or less whenever the US felt like it, because the Constitution doesn't say we can't.
Hah. Like the Constitution means anything to you, Cheney. Unless apparently it's convenient.
I was also amused when it came to light that Pelosi and others knew about the torture well before they chose to make a fuss about it. I can tell you who will not be getting my vote in the coming election.
I'm so bitter about it. There's almost nothing I can do alone, except talk to people and write and hope. I need other people. But they are content to bitch and moan and do nothing. I want to plan. I want a peaceful revolution. I want to return to what we're supposed to be about—freedom and the rule of law. I want no blood spilled. Not even a drop. Because that would just feed the war machine, and I would be carted off for sure, as an internal enemy of the state, as would anyone helping me.
I know there are a lot of other like me out there, voices amid the baahing. And I want to work with them. But they will say that we aren't enough, and so nothing will change. Apathy is Change's greatest enemy. It kills without lifting a single finger.
You think the government doesn't notice small fry like me? That's because you aren't paying enough attention. Probably plenty of people escape the gaze of Sauron, but not when you've been as vocal as I have on as many places as I have—Veganza before it went to the dogs, the Toadfish Monastery, Deviant Art, my personal blog, Topix, and various other places, both in person and virtually. There are people with less reason than me that have been arrested and charged with trumped-up bull shit to get them off the web. If I network my ass off, and get something going, I predict I will be banned from the computer, somehow, some way.
I doubt the government will be as obvious as it was in the 60s, when it was watching Vietnam protesters, but it will happen. It has happened. Code PINK, World Can't Wait, and other organizations surely have someone watching them. They won't arrest us in the open. It will be a fly-by-night sort of thing. Here one day, gone tomorrow, with some vacant excuse. And the puzzle pieces won't be put together for years.
Ideas are dangerous things. And they're viral, so they spread. This is why fascists get rid of the smart people first. Not that we have much to worry about, since we've got a shitty education system. You know why history isn't pushed all that much? Why world, early American history, and government and economics are under-taught? This is where ideas and notions often start. Patterns emerge. Things are made clear. This is why shitty literature and math are pushed—they're safe topics. All the good stuff is neutered in the name of PC, and what's left ain't worth the time but fulfills the expectation that we read. (Granted, the education system doesn't make the person, but it sure helps).
The social sciences give sheep teeth. GOOD literature gives them teeth. Revolutionary ideas give sheep teeth.
Yes, I AM in fact implying that this was all planned. Perhaps not with the goal of fascism in mind, but with the intent of maintaining power, if nothing else. The evidence is all there. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
In the 70s, schools were taken away from the local community. (And you thought your local school board had real power.) This is when there was mass dumbing-down of the curricula. So for the last thirty years, we've been edumacating an awful lot of idiots.
A stupid voting pool is easy to deceive.
A stupid voting pool is not concerned too terribly with politics.
A stupid voting pool will not question the government.
A stupid voting pool is complacent.
A stupid voting pool may occasionally baa in protest, but will not move to save the others in the flock.
In the 70s, all sort of people who are now power players got their start-Cheney, Bush Sr, Rumsfeld and others.
They picked an idiot divider for president, and got him elected.
The have focused us on the issues here at home that aren't really the federal government's business, such as gay marriage and other issues (no matter your personal feelings, that's the states' prerogative). They ignored Katrina and actually protecting us in favor of waving our troops around in the Middle East's face in hopes of making more war. They've spent just about as much time getting us to hate each other as they have pissing off the Arab world.
I am at a loss here. Why did we let them do this? Is it too late to fix things?
I hope not.