I keep getting this sinking feeling when I consider what is going on around us, under our very noses, right now, in our great country.
This feeling comes when I consider the list of events below the break...
- Our country has now cracked the Top 10 of countries that are jailing journalists.
- Our government is paying for propaganda abroad and at home.
- Those who oppose the War and our President's policies are being labeled cowards and "dishonest and reprehensible" - by our very own leaders.
- Even lower-level, non-political civil service positions, such as National Park Service employees, must pass a screening by political employees, to be sure that they tow the Bush line.
- During the past Presidential election, those who wished to enter an event to see the Vice President speak were required to sign a loyalty oath.
- A renewed PATRIOT Act would create a new official in the Justice Department responsible for domestic intelligence-gathering.
- Our military is already spying on Americans, including those who are gathering peacefully and do not agree with our President's policies.
- Our government is running secret gulags in foreign countries with no oversight, where unknown numbers of people are being held, and no one knows exactly what is happening to them, or exactly why they have been sent there.
- Our air marhsal service is going to start patroling bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit facilities across the country (and right after they shot and killed an innocent man).
- A renewed PATRIOT Act would include language prohibiting people from "willfully and knowingly" entering a restricted area "where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting." The new language would also apply to security breaches "in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance," and make it easier for the Secret Service to arrest protesters.
- The President is attempting to remake the Supreme Court in his own image, going as far as trying to appoint his own lawyer, and loyalist.
- The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), and transform it from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the U.S. such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.
I look at all of these things, and then consider the increased rhetoric against Syria and Iran, and I note to myself that no one in our government has actually stated that
all of our troops will eventually leave Iraq.
I think about all of this, and try to remind myself that George W. Bush has only part of his second term to go, and I am still left with this sinking feeling.
I say to myself:
"I don't think he intends to leave..."
