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As a resident of Minnesota, I have watched with revulsion—and as a teacher, been directly affected in the college classroom—as "nice guy" Tim Pawlenty swept into office on a tax-hating agenda that disgraces our state's longstanding, liberal tradition of social legislation. Then he starts posing for the cameras. Then he send in the storm troops. My god. This is deeply terrifying.
Think about this. In the United Stated, the press and the even some courts are piping up regularly against the past eight years' accumulating police statism. Does that mean that we're safe from rightist takeovers like those that have devastated other countries over the past century? Hell, no. As long as the ACLU, Salon.com, MoveOn.org, and even fitful Supreme Court rulings can maintain the appearance that democratic and Constitutional protections still function, GOP governments will let them make harmless noises until the strategic moment arrives to arrest them. By then Dick Cheney will be Attorney General.
If municipal and state police in Minnesota can terrorize and arrest "hippies," search their houses without plausible cause (never mind that they somehow obtained a warrant, that's another story, probably a story of judicial abuse), and steal their belongings, what do you imagine will protect, say, Glenn Greenwald two years or twenty years from now? Choose from...
1. His higher public profile
2. The law
3. Nothing
And what about each reader here? What about each citizen whom the government wants to keep away from the Fox newsbite cameras? What will save you? Choose from...
3. Nothing
