Letters to the Editor
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The problem of fear...
Our fear of terrorism has allowed a very powerful govenrnment to amass even more power which it uses to further entrench its sole validation; the orderly conduct of business.
At 9/11 I found myself a zillion miles from a road in the middle of Alaska's bush straining my ears to a scratchy radio listening for the words of our leadership and what I heard and remember was Republican Senator Ted Stevens, the same un-indicted bribe taking, influence peddling, anti-big government, deep pockets, election buying Ted Stevens famous for his laughable understanding of reality who coined the definition of the internet as a "series of tubes" phrase, felt it was urgent enough to tell the people that he would protect the public from terror and that he wanted to it especially known that the environmentalists were under suspicion first in his mind, even if it looked like islamic extremist fuelled by oil money, were responsible there at the beginning of the war on terror.
This moment is still deep in my consciousness and it's become apparent that a big powerful governement of the likes that we'd like to believe are empowered to protect us, we find that it empowers corrupt leaders like Ted Stevens and his country club cronies, and it is not the answer to our one plea; to protect us, our environment or the peace of a free people.
I'm fully aware that Ron Paul is not going to be our next president, but I would remind people who are not aware of history that there is movement in the body politic still, and in 1854 when the crazy as a fox 1st governor of California formed the outlandish 3rd party called "the Republican Party" and ran as its candidate, nobody could have predicted that their next candidate would be a roughsawn autodidact from Salem, Illinois named Abe Lincoln.
So maybe, when whoever is elected this next cycle, despite their intentions to do good, finds a federal apparatus turning on its citizens who've exercised their rights, as it reaches to maintain the peace and order that keeps its own survival insured indefinitely, as any powerful organization seeks to do first and foremost, it won't just be environmentalists and radical libertarians forming an aliance of conscience which seeks resolution of problems we face in our communities and not from a top-down invasive paranoid organization that seen open, active and vocal dissent as a problem rather than as the primary indicator of health in a society where free people willingly work together.