Bev ConoverAmurika is kaput, gone, finishedWed May 7 18:59:24 200367.1.142.166Aliens in our own landBy Bev ConoverOnline Journal Editor & PublisherMay 7, 2003—The United States of America that we thought we knew is gone, finished, kaput and we only have ourselves to blame. Most of our fellow citizens, who continue to mouth platitudes to freedom and democracy, have not yet been bitten by the police state that grows more powerful by the day with the blessings of Republicans and Democrats alike. (See Bush administration expands the infrastructure of a police state)We no longer have a country that operates on the consent of the governed, if, indeed, we ever did. But we did have the illusion, perhaps foolishly so in the face of the reality that has come to pass. We the people are now superfluous to the decisions made by the ruling elite in Washington, the state houses and city hall. We are now their servants, instead of they ours. Our only purpose is to do their dirty work at the least possible cost to them, buy their products with any money we have left over after minimally providing for our basic needs, kill and be killed in their endless wars, keep supplying them with more wage slaves and cannon fodder, and die before we cost them any money.Approved groupthink is the order of the day. To keep us in line, we will be spied upon in ever-increasing fashion—from a vast centralized database that contains all the intimate details of our lives to neighbors, co-workers, friends, family members and even our children watching and reporting our every utterance and move. Dare to voice a thought or read a book that isn't "approved" or engage in a public protest and you will be dealt with harshly—from losing your job to being beset upon by the good "patriots," interrogated by the authorities, or stripped of your citizenship and even disappearing into a gulag. And those born in the US, as well as naturalized citizens, will be subject to losing their citizenship.The American people only have themselves to blame for this nightmare that has descended upon us. They shrugged at the increasing power of the corporations (after all, bigger is better, right?) that gained "personhood" when the notes of a US Supreme Court reporter were misinterpreted in an 1886 railroad tax case. They cheered the so-called post-Watergate campaign finance reforms that paved the way for the corporations to buy the politicians. They paid no attention to the machinations of the private foundations that were spending their tax-free money on schemes to enslave the people. They turned a blind eye to the consolidation of the media—newspapers, radio, television, books, magazines, film, music, cable and satellite systems—in the hands of an ever-shrinking number of corporations. They eagerly accepted corporate "gifts" and foundation "grants" to their schools and universities, for scientific research and environmental projects, for the arts and even sports stadiums, never asking at what price do these "gifts" and "grants" come.Welcome to America, Inc., where just about everyone and everything is emblazoned with a corporate logo and where tomorrow it may become "unpatriotic" not to be so.There is a Japanese proverb that says, "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down." That proverb now also applies to America, where people have allowed themselves to be hammered into conformity—conformity to fit the corporate mold, conformity to fit the educational mode. Americans even allow their children who show a spark of individuality and creativity to be drugged at the demand of the education industry or risk having them snatched away by the state. Nonconformists, free thinkers, intellectuals, whatever you wish to call them, are anathema to the corporate police state, which only wants heads programmed to obey, serve and shop.Worse, the people sealed their fate by not demanding a full and public investigation into what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001, and instead opted for accepting the Bush administration's tale that 19 Arabs, armed with box cutters and financed by Osama bin Laden, were responsible for the carnage and destruction that occurred on that day, because they hated our freedoms and our lifestyles, which is why both had to be taken away to make us secure.And to make us even more "secure," Afghanistan had to be blown to smithereens, followed by Iraq, because Saddam might still have some of the weapons of mass destruction the US supplied him, even though no one can find them. Osama and Saddam have vanished, too, but the Afghans and Iraqis are grooving in the rubble over being "liberated."So here we are, aliens in our own land that becomes more alien to us by the day. Where can we flee to in order to find some sanity? What other countries even want us?Of even more concern is that the rise of fascism here is sparking fascist ideas in countries that have been there, done that and should know better. In particular, Spain, following some of the biggest antiwar demonstrations in Europe, is considering a law to severely punish people who take part in such protests. Even those who "circulate false information or reports with the aim of weakening the morale of the population or provoking disloyalty or an absence of fighting spirit among the Spanish military" would face the same punishment: up to six years in prison.If the government of Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar is considering such a law, Franco and Mussolini not withstanding, can Italy under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi be far behind? The right-wing Berlusconi, Italy's richest man, sits atop a media empire.Bear in mind that the corporations know no national boundaries and Letizia Moratti, Berlusconi's minister of education, was chairman and executive director of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation Europe and she sits on the Advisory Board of the Carlyle Group–Europe.Assuming the hands of the corporations also are in the European Union, to paraphrase an old joke, where does an alien go? http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/050703Conover/050703conover.html Congressional gold medal to Prime Minister Tony Blair — APFN, Wed May 7 21:21 Bush, Blair Nominated for Nobel Prize for Iraq War — Michael Santomauro, Thu May 8 22:54
Bev ConoverAmurika is kaput, gone, finishedWed May 7 18:59:24 200367.1.142.166Aliens in our own landBy Bev ConoverOnline Journal Editor & PublisherMay 7, 2003—The United States of America that we thought we knew is gone, finished, kaput and we only have ourselves to blame. Most of our fellow citizens, who continue to mouth platitudes to freedom and democracy, have not yet been bitten by the police state that grows more powerful by the day with the blessings of Republicans and Democrats alike. (See Bush administration expands the infrastructure of a police state)We no longer have a country that operates on the consent of the governed, if, indeed, we ever did. But we did have the illusion, perhaps foolishly so in the face of the reality that has come to pass. We the people are now superfluous to the decisions made by the ruling elite in Washington, the state houses and city hall. We are now their servants, instead of they ours. Our only purpose is to do their dirty work at the least possible cost to them, buy their products with any money we have left over after minimally providing for our basic needs, kill and be killed in their endless wars, keep supplying them with more wage slaves and cannon fodder, and die before we cost them any money.Approved groupthink is the order of the day. To keep us in line, we will be spied upon in ever-increasing fashion—from a vast centralized database that contains all the intimate details of our lives to neighbors, co-workers, friends, family members and even our children watching and reporting our every utterance and move. Dare to voice a thought or read a book that isn't "approved" or engage in a public protest and you will be dealt with harshly—from losing your job to being beset upon by the good "patriots," interrogated by the authorities, or stripped of your citizenship and even disappearing into a gulag. And those born in the US, as well as naturalized citizens, will be subject to losing their citizenship.The American people only have themselves to blame for this nightmare that has descended upon us. They shrugged at the increasing power of the corporations (after all, bigger is better, right?) that gained "personhood" when the notes of a US Supreme Court reporter were misinterpreted in an 1886 railroad tax case. They cheered the so-called post-Watergate campaign finance reforms that paved the way for the corporations to buy the politicians. They paid no attention to the machinations of the private foundations that were spending their tax-free money on schemes to enslave the people. They turned a blind eye to the consolidation of the media—newspapers, radio, television, books, magazines, film, music, cable and satellite systems—in the hands of an ever-shrinking number of corporations. They eagerly accepted corporate "gifts" and foundation "grants" to their schools and universities, for scientific research and environmental projects, for the arts and even sports stadiums, never asking at what price do these "gifts" and "grants" come.Welcome to America, Inc., where just about everyone and everything is emblazoned with a corporate logo and where tomorrow it may become "unpatriotic" not to be so.There is a Japanese proverb that says, "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down." That proverb now also applies to America, where people have allowed themselves to be hammered into conformity—conformity to fit the corporate mold, conformity to fit the educational mode. Americans even allow their children who show a spark of individuality and creativity to be drugged at the demand of the education industry or risk having them snatched away by the state. Nonconformists, free thinkers, intellectuals, whatever you wish to call them, are anathema to the corporate police state, which only wants heads programmed to obey, serve and shop.Worse, the people sealed their fate by not demanding a full and public investigation into what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001, and instead opted for accepting the Bush administration's tale that 19 Arabs, armed with box cutters and financed by Osama bin Laden, were responsible for the carnage and destruction that occurred on that day, because they hated our freedoms and our lifestyles, which is why both had to be taken away to make us secure.And to make us even more "secure," Afghanistan had to be blown to smithereens, followed by Iraq, because Saddam might still have some of the weapons of mass destruction the US supplied him, even though no one can find them. Osama and Saddam have vanished, too, but the Afghans and Iraqis are grooving in the rubble over being "liberated."So here we are, aliens in our own land that becomes more alien to us by the day. Where can we flee to in order to find some sanity? What other countries even want us?Of even more concern is that the rise of fascism here is sparking fascist ideas in countries that have been there, done that and should know better. In particular, Spain, following some of the biggest antiwar demonstrations in Europe, is considering a law to severely punish people who take part in such protests. Even those who "circulate false information or reports with the aim of weakening the morale of the population or provoking disloyalty or an absence of fighting spirit among the Spanish military" would face the same punishment: up to six years in prison.If the government of Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar is considering such a law, Franco and Mussolini not withstanding, can Italy under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi be far behind? The right-wing Berlusconi, Italy's richest man, sits atop a media empire.Bear in mind that the corporations know no national boundaries and Letizia Moratti, Berlusconi's minister of education, was chairman and executive director of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation Europe and she sits on the Advisory Board of the Carlyle Group–Europe.Assuming the hands of the corporations also are in the European Union, to paraphrase an old joke, where does an alien go? http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/050703Conover/050703conover.html
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