War on Free Speech just went postal, Disney goes NSA, Hollywood joins the Army, more

Articles in this Topic Discussions in this Topic

Jul 28, 2002

I live in a rural, rather isolated mountain subdivision. My nearest full-time neighbor is half-a-mile away; best of all he's even more anti-fascist than we are, so he's a very unlikely candidate to spy on us. In the other direction from our house, our closest neighbor just moved to the Philippines. Only two other homes lie between--and they are all owned by part-timers who are unlikely to want to "spy" on us. In fact likelihood is they'd be out here to get away from that kind of thing. So, when my husband--who, in having to use the services of air flight through two airports, avoided the long lines by taking on NO carry-on luggage (he packed everything into his suitcase which was in the cargo hold)--told me I was being paranoid about the "TIPS" program, Dubya's police state and the like, I had to admit, he was right. What do I have to worry about? Actually, the local property owners association was a bigger threat to our freedom than the man I regret voting for November, 2000.

The thing is, like everything else--rock and rap music replacing country-western as the music the local youth listen to more often, New Agers moving into Big Bend country in droves, injecting their unitarianism into "God's country", a mild form of the street-gang mentality in area public schools--this corner of Far West Texas will gradually become like everywhere else, to where folks know they live in a police state. (BTW, there are more "cops", so to speak, in this area per capita than anyplace else in the USA! Roughly 1/3 of all employed people in this area work in one of the following: INS [Border Patrol--the biggest chunk] and Customs, State Police [Department of Public Safety], local sheriff, constables, deputies, and JPs, and police, Anti-Drug Task Forces, SWAT units, and even the emergency personnel--my husband included--are "policified" by being such as "tactical medics", "tactical firefighters", etc.) So it might seem "freer" out here today, but who can vouch for two years from now?

Far be it for the Bushies to further quash freedom in the good ol' USA with their TIPS program--which turns ordinary citizens into '1984-type' snitches--the American media couldn't even bring themselves to outscoop Australia's Sydney Morning Herald on this media issue to (almost) end all media issues: one more giant leap in assault on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. But that's really not news, as I have come to rely on foreign press reports for news on America that the US mainstream media is too spineless to report. For the orignal article on the Terrorism Information and Prevention System program about how service workers can now spy on you at home to determine if you are a "terrorist", and is bound to land thousands in detention simply because these "workers" want to screw somebody, go to "http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/1..." for the article entitled "US Planning to Recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies" by Ritt Goldstein; also read his followup ("Foundations are in place for martial law") at "http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/2..."--here he discusses FEMA, which, during the proposed invasion of Nicaragua to rid the country of Sandanistas ("remember Iran-Contra"?), was reformulated in Executive Orders by President Reagan--the hero of the far-right-- to be set up with concentration camps for dissenters of this "war", and, at other times, set up to house angry black male Americans, and, now, Arab Americans. Could all free-speech-minded Americans be next?.

Go To Page: 1 2

The copyright of the article War on Free Speech just went postal, Disney goes NSA, Hollywood joins the Army, more in Media Issues is owned by Deborah Lagarde. Permission to republish War on Free Speech just went postal, Disney goes NSA, Hollywood joins the Army, more in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.