I wish people would stop breaking into tears when they talk to me these days.
I am traveling across the country at the moment -- Colorado to California -- speaking to groups of Americans from all walks of life about the assault on liberty and the 10 steps now underway in America to a violently closed society.
The good news is that Americans are already awake: I thought there would be resistance to or disbelief at this message of gathering darkness -- but I am finding crowds of people who don't need me to tell them to worry; they are already scared, already alert to the danger and entirely prepared to hear what the big picture might look like. To my great relief, Americans are smart and brave and they are unflinching in their readiness to hear the worst and take action. And they love their country.
But I can't stand the stories I am hearing. I can't stand to open my email these days. And wherever I go, it seems, at least once a day, someone very strong starts to cry while they are speaking.
In Boulder, two days ago, a rosy-cheeked thirtysomething mother of two small children, in soft yoga velours, started to tear up when she said to me: "I want to take action but I am so scared. I look at my kids and I am scared. How do you deal with fear? Is it safer for them if I act or stay quiet? I don't want to get on a list." In D.C., before that, a beefy, handsome civil servant, a government department head -- probably a Republican -- confides in a lowered voice that he is scared to sign the new ID requirement for all government employees, that exposes all his most personal information to the State -- but he is scared not to sign it: "If I don't, I lose my job, my house. It's like the German National ID card," he said quietly. This morning in Denver I talked for almost an hour to a brave, much-decorated high-level military man who is not only on the watch list for his criticism of the administration -- his family is now on the list. His elderly mother is on the list. His teenage son is on the list. He has flown many dangerous combat missions over the course of his military career, but his voice cracks when he talks about the possibility that he is exposing his children to harassment.
Jim Spencer, a former columnist for the Denver Post who has been critical of the Bush administration, told me today that I could use his name: he is on the watch list. An attorney contacts me to say that she told her colleagues at the Justice Department not to torture a detainee; she says she then faced a criminal investigation, a professional referral, saw her emails deleted -- and now she is on the watch list. I was told last night that a leader of Code Pink, the anti-war women's action group, was refused entry to Canada. I hear from a tech guy who works for the airlines -- again, probably a Republican -- that once you are on the list you never get off. Someone else says that his friend opened his luggage to find a letter from the TSA saying that they did not appreciate his reading material. Before I go into the security lines, I find myself editing my possessions. In New York's LaGuardia, I reluctantly found myself putting a hardcover copy of Tara McKelvey's excellent Monstering, an expose of CIA interrogation practices, in a garbage can before I get in the security line; it is based on classified information. This morning at my hotel, before going to the sirport, I threw away a very nice black T-shirt that said "We Will Not be Silenced" -- with an Arabic translation -- that someone had given me, along with a copy of poems written by detainees at Guantanamo.
In my America we are not scared to get in line at the airport. In my America, we will not be silenced.
More times than I can count, courageous and confident men who are telling me about speaking up, but who are risking what they see as the possible loss of job, home or the ability to pay for grown kids' schooling, start to choke up. Yesterday a woman in one gathering started to cry simply while talking about the degradation of her beloved country.
And always the questions: what do we do?
It is clear from this inundation of personal stories of abuse and retribution against ordinary Americans that a network of criminal behavior and intention is catching up more and more mainstream citizens in its grasp. It is clear that this is not democracy as usual -- or even the corruption of democracy as usual. It is clear that we will need more drastic action than emails to Congress.
The people I am hearing from are conservatives and independents as well as progressives. The cardinal rule of a closing or closed society is that your alignment with the regime offers no protection; in a true police state no one is safe.
I read the news in a state of something like walking shock: seven soldiers wrote op-eds critical of the war -- in The New York Times; three are dead, one shot in the head. A female soldier who was about to become a whistleblower, possibly about abuses involving taxpayers' money: shot in the head. Pat Tillman, who was contemplating coming forward in a critique of the war: shot in the head. Donald Vance, a contractor himself, who blew the whistle on irregularities involving arms sales in Iraq -- taken hostage FROM the U.S. Embassy BY U.S. soldiers and kept without recourse to a lawyer in a U.S. held-prison, abused and terrified for weeks -- and scared to talk once he got home. Another whistleblower in Iraq, as reported in Vanity Fair: held in a trailer all night by armed contractors before being ejected from the country.
Last week contractors, immune from the rule of law, butchered 17 Iraqi civilians in cold blood. Congress mildly objected -- and contractors today butcher two more innocent civilian Iraqi ladies -- in cold blood.
It is clear yet that violent retribution, torture or maybe worse, seems to go right up this chain of command? Is it clear yet that these people are capable of anything? Is it obvious yet that criminals are at the helm of the nation and need to be not only ousted but held accountable for their crimes?
Is it treason yet?
This is an open invitation to honorable patriots on the Right and in the center to join this movement to restore the rule of law and confront this horror: this is not conservatism, it is a series of crimes against the nation and against the very essence of America. Join us, we need you.
This movement must transcend partisan lines. The power of individual conscience is profound when people start to wake up.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said No: he told colleague that they would be ashamed when the world learned about the Administration's warrantless wiretapping. A judge today ruled that the U.S. can't just ship prisoners out of Guantanamo to be tortured at will -- she said No. The Center for Constitutional Rights is about to file a civil lawsuit -- against Blackwater: they are saying No.
In Germany, according to historian Richard Evans, in 1931-1932, if enough Germans of conscience had begun to say No -- history would have had an entirely diferent outcome.
If we go any further down this road the tears will be those of conservatives as well as progressives. They will be American tears.
The time for weeping has to stop; the time for confronting must begin.
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We shouldn't be afraid of being on these 'lists' we should be working our red white and blue tushies off to get on as many of them as possible.
and make the ones who aren't on the 'lists' the ones who are keeping these lists, using them to try and make us be afraid to speak out as Americans, worry for a change.
Ask yourselves this: had the people who threw British tea into Boston Harbour been AFRAID of being put on the Kings 'watch lists" therer would be no United States of America, period.
this administra
I wish people would quit voting for incumbents
When I don't know anybody running for an office, I typically will vote for a non-incumb
Get churches, etc., involved - protests, public education, organizing
Give generously to Democratic candidates
DEMAND ELECTION paper trails.
90% of us have't even visited their reps or senators. Form groups with community leaders and visit F2F. Raise hell. Clean up the domestic spying, undo Chertoff's above-the-
No, Democrats and Republican
Start visiting local newspaper editors in groups, with community leaders, and writing letters to the editors. MAKE your friends read things like The Shock Doctrine and American Dynasty. All is revealed in a way that REALLY motivates people.
Organize your neighborho
Above all, keep the Internet neutral. If we lose that, we've lost our main informatio
Dump money at ACLU so lawsuits can be filed by the dozen.
Run for local office. Copy the strategy of the Right as it took over the GOP. We should be taking ovetake back the GOP ourselves.
MAKE NOISE. DON'T KEEP QUIET. THE SCAREDER YOU ARE, THE MORE IMPORTANT IT IS TO SPEAK OUT AND FIGHT BACK. NEVER SHUT UP. What's the point of being safe if your community isn't safe?
Don't be intimidate
Stop bitching. We are not children of cowardly people. There're children and a planet to protect.
Pico
http://www
So you are afraid. Everybody gets afraid sometime. I've seen guys pee themselves fighting for YOU.. they were so afraid but they fought anyway. It is what you do with it that determines what you are. You have to turn your fear into something you can manage and something that gives you enough control to move forward and it is usually anger that does the job. Most heroes are just folks who got crazy mad and went headlong into unbridled rages. At that point they forgot they were scared or were just sick and tired of being scared and went for it. Sometimes folks just go bonkers and do something really extraordin
What was this country founded on and what was WW2 about and Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm and this Iraq war? What were they all based on? FREEDOM for ourselves or someone else. And today our citizens are frozen in fear which deficates on every soldier's grave that secured our way of life and I think that stinks like, well, cowardice.
We will get the Government we deserve. It is that simple. If you feel that you and your children or grandchild
The time is now and we all have our minds wrapped around our joint problems. The time for talk has passed.
Peace & Courage from the Great State of Utah
Fear against government reprisal has never been the American way. Can anyone tell me what our government has done on behalf of the American people in the last twenty years? It has done nothing but take, more taxes for the working class, more blood for the Corporate cause, gun control, surveillan
I could go on for hours, who voted us to be the world police? Since when do we attack counties who have not attacked us? With enough Nukes to level the World 7 times over does anyone give a Rats Ass about Iran?
America pays the UN,Egypt, and just about every other poverty stricken nation with an axe to grind. What do the American people get? We get whatever the corporatio
You ask,"Is it treason yet?"
The list of felonious offenses by the Bush/Chene
Your message is very important: "honorable patriots on the Right and in the center join this movement to restore the rule of law and confront this horror...T
There is a lot of hard work and repair that needs to start happening in this country. From rebuilding some of our nation's dilabidate
Inaction isn't any kind of answer either—I'm suggesting some smarts be used and eschew all this knee-jerk token crap for something more meaningful
We're not at this crisis because of happenstan
We have to stop being pawns in our own undoing.
Oh and if someone wonders why I do not mention the Repubs—it'
you already know...the
But these 'Take Christmas Off', and 'National Strike Day' (I underline Day), ain't gonna work folks. We, that is Americans (by the way the UK is even worse off), are behind the eight-ball
They can even see us coming now--just look up.
Got money? Not for long—see the commercial on TV where the woman is scorned for writing a check—if you agree think PAWN.
Wanna fly?—I'll check and see if our masters will allow it.
Maybe it's time to catch up to them and even the play field? A national strike, unless meaningful and painful, to them, and yes, probably to us as well will do nothing except allow them to usher in even more control. Pawn. Don't do it.
Unless any movement intends to shut the country down by a protracted strike it's just pablum to keep you from crying a little. And could tip the scale for more draconian measures. [read: the next such strike will be even harder to pull off]
In such a strike: Yes you might loose your home (do you own it anyway or does the bank and the IRS?). Oh yeah I forgot we don't have much of a family backup anymore, do we?
No support system to get by on. Got rid of all that nonsense in the '80s.
Yes might loose your job (is it secure anyway? Or do you shop Wal Mart? Outsourcin
Oh yeah no savings to fall back on—spend spend spend.
I mean we had to do it right?
What would the neighbors think if I drove last years SUV?
(they still feel pity for me because I don't own a Iphone.)
Teach our children ourselves—
That's out.
Yep looks pretty dreadful gang.
While you protested [their] wars they learned how to control us; large riots, and how to distract our collective attention. We forget about those days. They haven't.
If you don't believe me just look up anytime, anywhere you travel—YOU ARE being monitored every second, and every inch of your lives. So what'cha gonna do now?
They learned—we didn't, because we feed on too many distractio
Big Brother doesn't blink--any
And it's all by design—tho
Why don't we know what to do?
Think about that for awhile folks.
Then click here: http://www
TPTB have been social engineerin
It takes a lot of guts to say—shit, I let it happen.
And even more to say ok—my bad, let's fix it. Now.
[Note: The lessons learned from these experiment
What did this all do for our society? Well it allowed the Dems to become our mommies and daddies, and give us all the things we've forgotten how to give ourselves. Yes that's right—No Father—No Problem—ju
I see many suggestion
provoking notice, or otherwise garnering attention (theoretic
such steps are moribund at best, and downright self-defea
while there is much hand-wring
entire world lately. What most do not realize--i
very well thought out (researche
We've willingly allowed ourselves to become stupid and detached; self-invol
and greedy. I would go as far as to say that indeed over the last century we've
(that's you and me babe), have been resting on the laurels of our forefather
thinking that by some divine mechanism (or maybe jsut osmosis), we still possess all that they were, and stood for. Much like any competitiv
like they actually are part of what takes place way down below. Well guess what
gang, liberty and freedom isn't a spectator sport. Hence the moribund terminolog
used above. You see that while we've become dumb, etc., they've gotten smarter-- much smarter. They watched and studied—le
I digress...
Take the feminist movement (take a bow Gloria Steinman), women were encouraged to believe that the entire movement was to 'empower' women—blow
Well it worked! And they learned—oh yes, they learned and used what they learned.
Unfortunat