I'm not sure about everyone else in society, but it seems to me that there is something distinctly off kilter in the nation we live in. Just think about it, we have been waging a near non-stop series of wars within and without of our country for almost fourty years starting with President Richard Nixons War on Poverty moving through Vietnam, into the Gulf War, hitting the Persian Gulf, and jumping into our most recent, and the current, war: the War on Terror.
Yet I digress, what bothers me most is during the last eight years we have been mentally subjugated by mass media and the government. Convinced that we are afraid of a threat that has alwayse, and will alwayse, exist. Convinced that the use of torture is ok, because we are using it to protect ourselves from the terrorist threat. Convinced that slaughtering thousands of people is ok, because we are protecting ourselves from the terrorist threat. Convinced that giving up our right to a trial by jury is ok, because it is protecting us from the terrorist threat.
Today, in this country, we have been torturing people. Members of the CIA, as directed by President Bush, have been torturing high profile al-Qaeda POWs for the sake of gaining information on other high profile al-Qaeda members as well as information on other terrorist groups. It has been publicly revealed by President Bush that waterboarding (a complete description can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding ) ,as well as other "Enhanced Interrogation Techneques" used by the CIA, are accaptable in his eyes when he vetoed the bill passed by congress designed to STOP these inhumane procedures. The fact that the bill passed legislation by a slim margin in the first place show that not only does President Bush allow and accept torture, but that the United States as a whole allows and accepts it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7285290.stm (BBC Report on Interrogation Veto)
Not only does President Bush approve of torture, he also supports the slaughter of civilians in Iraq if it means killing terrorists. According to http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ , there have been upwards of 82,000 "violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion." These men, women and children are not only NOT terrorists, they most likely don't support the terrorists. There have even been reported deaths of Iraqi police officers as well as entire families being blown up!
Finally we come to the Patriot Act, a series of laws passed by congress that should send a shiver down every American's spine. The laws allow for the "authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants; "sneak and peek" searches through which law enforcement officers search a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s permission or knowledge; the expanded use of "National Security Letters," which allow the FBI to search telephone, email and financial records without a court order; and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, including library and financial records." We now have almost no rights concerning the privacy of our home and public life.
These actions are a disgrace on our country. How has it come to the point where we feel safe letting our government search our houses and records without the slightest punitive measure taken against them? Why are we, as a people, letting the governent take away from us the rights we fought and died for when founding our country? More importantly WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT!?
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