Forwarded: The New Totalitarianism

[unixronin]

jilara reports briefly on the official harassment of journalists for speaking out against the New Pravda ... True, they didn't pass a law, so it's not TECHNICALLY a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

Wonder where they'll site the Gulags when Gitmo overflows?

Comments

[caged-admin.livejournal.com]

Harassment? Where? Sorry, is there some kind of Constitutional article specifically guaranteeing personal access to the President for journalists? It's simple: the more the administration likes you, the more likely you are to hear things from them first, or get personal interviews. Do you honestly think this hasn't been going on for decades (centuries?)?

Look! Look! It's more Crushing of Dissent in John Ashcroft's America! Puh-leeeeaaase.

And the Gitmo comment is way, way over the top.

Re:

[caged-admin.livejournal.com]

Having re-read the linked post a third time, I've just realized that I interpreted "no-fly list" as "list of journalists not allowed to fly with the President," whereas the poster presumably meant they are either on the watch list for domestic flights -- or barred from them entirely.

Assuming that, I suspend the first and second parts of my comment. The third stands. And I add a new comment, again based on the above assumption: who cares that the women are white or middle-aged? And I'd like to see evidence of causation, please, not correlation. I can relate or research any number of anecdotes related to the stupidities of the lists and the security procedures at airports. This sounds like a case of flamboyant narcissism to me.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, who said a damned thing about personal access to the President? I sure as hell didn't. That was a total straw-man.

These are two journalists who have publicly criticized the policies of the Bush administration, and apparently for that reason alone are being arbitrarily denied the right to travel by air. They have been told that if they step across a designated line in the airport, they will be arrested. Their freedom to travel is being restricted because they have written newspaper articles the administration doesn't like. Notice that I said that doing so is not TECHNICALLY violating their First Amendment rights, because no explicit law has been passed to do so.

And what the hell do YOU call Gitmo? It's a place people just Disappear to on suspicion, they're for the most part held there incommunicado without counsel until the government gets around to interrogating them, and the government refuses to even tell anyone who they're holding there. That sure sounds a hell of a lot more like a gulag than like anything resembling due process to me.


Have you been following some of the powers the government has granted itself since 9/11? You are AWARE that if someone decides you're a terrorist suspect, you can be picked up and held indefinitely without trial, without charges being filed, without thew right to legal counsel, and you can be tried in absentia without the right to know the charges filed against you, hear the evidence against you, or know the identity of those testifying against you? How can you devend yourself against unknown charged supported by unknown evidence sworn to by unknown witnesses? You can't. That's not called due process, that's called a kangaroo court. That's not "Innocent until proven guilty", that's "Charged, therefore guilty."

Take off the blinders, drop the adoration of the administration for a minute, and look at America in 2004 vs. America in 2000, and tell me if YOU feel more secure. Tell me if YOU like the changes you see. Tell me if YOU like the fact that the government can now demand any financial records of yours it wants, at any time, and your bank MUST comply and isn't allowed to tell you. Tell me if YOU like the idea of anyone critical of Bush being herded to fenced "designated free speech areas" out of sight of any of his public appearances. HELLO??? "DESIGNATED FREE SPEECH AREAS"??? What's next, "designated Constitutional rights areas"? Think of the screams and howls of outrage there would be if we established fenced "Designated civil rights areas" in each city.

I'll tell you this for free: I'm not the least bit more afraid of terrorists now than I was in 2000, and I'm not the slightest bit convinced that I personally am the least bit safer from them. But I'm a hell of a lot more afraid of the government than I was in 2000, and I feel a hell of a lot less safe from it.

And now the government is restricting the travel of "dissident" journalists. It's not a huge step from there to just interning them. Personally, I'm starting to wait for the other shoe to drop. I supported Bush in the 2000 election, but since then, while I don't think he's stupid, I'm increasingly coming to think of him as a dangerous zealot who is steering the US on a steady and increasingly rapid slide towards totalitarianism. (What's worse, the UK is following in lockstep.) And I think you're too blinded by your vision of what America stands for to see it. Hey, I love what America stands for too -- it's why I came here -- but the vision and the reality don't match any more.

Sometimes you have to see something from the outside to see it clearly, and I think you're standing so close to the forest you can't see it for trees.