The Imperial Presidency

The right wing zealots who make up the Bush Administration capitalize on the most effective weapon there is: fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of a vague, shapeless concept that has put good people into a walking comatose condition. The press, Congress, and good American citizens has surrendered piece-by-piece our civil liberties to a point where it might be too late. Jim Hightower writes about this Orwellian nightmare saying "Since the founding of America, a central tenet of our liberty has been that the military is not to be turned on our own people. Violations of this guiding rule have occurred in the past, but rarely and only temporarily, and when it's been violated, public outcry has forced the reinstatement of the rule.

Bush & Co., however, has not only turned loose the military to spy extensively on the American people, but has also asserted the right to do so in perpetuity. Its claim is that 9/11 turned the homeland into a foreign battlefield, so the nation's historic prohibition against military surveillance of Americans is null and void. And since this war on terrorists has no end ("the long war," Rumsfeld calls it), the Bushites maintain that the Pentagon can engage in domestic spying ad infinitum."

Those of us opposed to the administration's illegal activities are branded "pacifists" and, by extension, traitors. We are spied upon. Our phone calls are monitored. We are silenced. But as American citizens, we have an obligation to stop this insanity. Wake up, America. Stand up, be counted, take back our country!