A Taste of Good Ole-Fashioned American Freedom

For the second time this week, the Iraqis have been given a taste of good ole-fashioned American Freedom. Yes, you know the kind of freedom I am speaking about, where you are only "free" so long as you bow down and obey the US Government 100%. History is once again repeating itself, but this time, instead of shootings on university campuses against protestors of the Vietnam war, the shootings are happening in a country that is just getting started all over again, where protestors are just learning what freedom is supposed to be like.

What they are really learning is what many Americans already know: dissent against this administration *will not* be tolerated in any form or fashion whatsoever. What those Iraqis do not fully understand is that they are in fact at this very moment, even under our military control, more free than we Americans are here in the USA. Oh sure, by all intents and appearances, we are "free". But just ask any politician, Hollywood star, Musical Group, or anyone else in the spotlight what happens when you speak out against this Administration. You find yourself ridiculed to the point of losing your job, losing your livelihood, and being pratically blackballed all over the public spectrum. Or, attend a Peace rally in a major city where the police are almost certain to use some kind of so-called non-lethal weapon that still terrorizes the protestors and is meant to disway them from dissenting against this administration. Or, run an anti-Bush site on the web and watch some right-wing nutcase hack into your site and shut you down, sometimes for good. Not to mention being of Arab descent in this country and being whisked away, never to be seen or heard from again just because of your nationality. And let's not forget these wonderful new powers granted this government under the "PATRIOT" Act, or Ashcroft's desire for even more power with his "PATRIOT" Act II.

This is *not* Freedom, my happy little American campers. This is bordering so close to fascism that if I blink too quickly it just may become a reality.