by James Glaser
September 17, 2003

"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Those words have been used by the Bush administration so often in order to stifle any opposition to their attack on our freedom.

Three States and 160 communities have stood up to this scorn heaped on any that disagree with the White House, and they have said no to the so-called Patriot Act. These Americans that love their freedom have passed resolutions that either condemn that law or they refuse to help federal agents enforce it.

As an example of just how polarized this White House is making our country, Attorney General John Ashcroft accused the American Library Association of "baseless hysteria" because they have questioned one section of the Patriot Act.

The Library Association doesn't like the fact that Federal Agents can look at the records of library patrons, to see what American citizens are reading without a court order, and the fact that the library can't even tell that citizen that their records have been given to the Government. This is a fine example of how Secret Police units start in countries.

Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the library association's Washington office said, "If he is coming after us specifically, we must be having an impact."

Here is what scares so many people in America today. It is not possible to find out how many times the federal government has gone after library records because even that information is Classified. Secret Police in every totalitarian state, keep secret files. This is the direction President Bush has our country going in.

Thank God Congress is starting to wake up. The Patriot Act was passed while the World Trade Center was still burning, but we must remember that this Administration had this 342 page law all ready to go. They just needed a panic situation in order to get it passed.

In July the House voted 309 to 118 to repeal a provision of the Act that allows Federal Officials to do "sneak and peak" searches of our homes without notifying the home owner. Soon every Federal Agent will be wearing long black leather trench coats and asking to see our papers.

This battle against the Bush White House and their attack on our freedom has just started. John Aschroft is going around the country giving speeches to selected audiences and telling them that there's nothing new in this law. Then I ask why do we even need this new law?

This new Secret Police law can get information about anyone. These records can come from libraries, hospitals and clinics, businesses, from any place on the Internet and any group you belong to, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the American Civil Liberties Union. In every case, those that give the government information about us, cannot reveal what they have done.

You might think that this is no concern of yours because you are a freedom loving American that stands up for our country. Well think again, every purge of citizens in any country, has taken many people that have nothing to do with the target group. You might be able to convince the Federal Police that your arrest was a mistake, but even if you are let go, the legal bills and the mark of "Enemy of the State," will be on you.

This is nothing to mess around with. The Attorney General and the President of the United States are now passing laws that create a Secret Police, that are above the law. Courts will not have a check on this new American Gestapo. If Washington will not tell us how many times they have recorded citizen's reading lists, you know they won't tell us about the other things they do.

I do not use the term Gestapo flippantly, as I think the German Secret Police is a valid example of where we are headed under the Bush Administration. This isn't just a slam at Bush and his administration, but a wake up call to every American that loves our country and the principals it was founded on. George Bush is attacking the things that make us free. Bush could very well be the worst terrorist to ever have attacked America. He could destroy our country and all the time keep telling us that he is doing it to protect us.

This from Herman Goring at the Nuremberg Trials, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

All governments use propaganda including ours. Joseph Goebbels was the Nazi Propaganda Minister and this is what he said about how to use it. "The rank and file are usually more primitive than we imagine, Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious" Goebbels went on to say, "The most brilliant propaganda technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly.... It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." How many times have you heard President Bush say "Weapons of Mass Destruction?" How many time has he said Saddam Hussein and al Qaida in the same sentence? It worked in the 1930s and it works today

George Bush has used a terrorist attack on American soil in order to start his brand of Fascism. The dictionary says that fascism is characterized by strict social and economic control, aggressive nationalistic policies often accompanied by racism, and the crushing of opposition.

There are several ways to crush opposition. You can throw people into prison without trial and that has been done, or you can brand them as unpatriotic, like "you are with us or you are with the terrorists," or you can belittle them and brand them as hysterical, as John Ashcroft has done to the library board.

From "Americans rise against the Patriot Act," in the San Francisco Chronicle Sept. 14, 2003, "In a speech on the eve of the Sept. 11 anniversary, President Bush told a cheering crowd of federal investigators and troops from the nearby Marine training base at Quantico, Va., that law enforcement still faced "unreasonable obstacles" in pursuing terrorists. He said the administration would seek expanded powers to obtain subpoenas without having to consult judges or grand juries, hold suspects without bail, and apply the death penalty to a broader range of terrorism cases." John Ashcroft asks that we trust the government. History tells us that it is a mistake to allow any government to police itself. America was built on a system of checks and balances The Judiciary keeps a check on Law Enforcement and without that, things tend to run amuck.

Our form of government, with these checks and balances, has served us well for over two hundred years. Now we have a group of men in Washington that think their way is better and they are willing to destroy the United States, in order to prove that they are right and they will do anything to get their way.

When a President of the United States will lie to the American people so that he can have his own war, we had better sit up and take notice. Not only are our children's and grandchildren's freedom in jeopardy, but our own freedom is too. It took Adolph Hitler about eight years to take control of Germany. George Bush could do the same thing here with one more term. Scary Huh?