Extra! Extra! Read all about it: http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/gen/31878prs20070920.html
Info about the ACLU free speech forum which was just held in September '07, including a 25 page report.
Why is a free speech forum even necessary? Repeat: Religious controls, monetary gains, and power-based agendas are at stake. Hence the necessity to control free speech and in the process, to ultimately control thought itself. The tools of such thought control are the media and the overly-punitive legislation.
Government secrecy is the cornerstone of abuse: To protect those religious, economic and agenda-based controls is the fundament on which virtually ALL post-911 legislation is based.
Witness: Patriot Act National Security Letters, FISA by-passing of judicial review, warrantless arrests without probable cause in the Patriot Act. Presidential immunity from war criminal status in the Military Commissions Act (torture bill) guarantees the success of the agenda to appear to be “Strong on terror”, while protecting the secrecy of the President’s violent crimes to the “terrorists” in Guantanamo who, it so happens, have mostly been proven innocent. www.centerforconsitutionalrights.com ; www.aclu.org .
The ACLU’s extensive documentation of the Administration’s over-invocation of the “state secrets” claim is proof of more crimes to be hidden. An FBI document showing wiretapping targets is posted to the ACLU’s website, showing how the FBI blacked out nearly 70% of the document’s contents prior to its release.
Overly-punitive post-911 legislation which specifically targets vocal people is guaranteed to eventually duplicate free speech-quelling practices of dictatorships abroad. Tianenmen Square may be the penultimate example to us Americans of such dictatorship, but in fact is the accepted norm to citizens living in authoritarian governments. It is the ordinary person, not merely the big fish in the pond, who know that they all have to shut up. Why? Once again…religious controls, economic gains, and agendas which protect the politicians (and not the people) lie at the root of the government-induced violence used to silence the people.
Witness the recent increase in tasering in the United States of America.
We are already more than half-way on the road to authoritarian government.
And to recognize the roots of such authoritarian principles---and how to deal with the psychology behind it--- is fundamental to holding the Constitution-eating cancer in check. Given how ignorant many Americans are to the ways in which dictatorship works, and to its manifestations, it is important that we join the public debate and help to open up peoples’ eyes. Many well-meaning people believe that the government SHOULD teach our children ethics in the schools and SHOULD crack down on words such as “I will kill you” because victims of violence are caught by the free speech defenses, and because of every other SHOULD and every other GOOD REASON in the book. In so doing, these well-meaning people also forget one fundamentally important fact: Governments will never protect our best interest, as assumed by all these “shoulds”. Because every human being is capable of dark and light. Denial forgets that fact.
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." -- John Adams, 1772
Lashing out in violence against the do-good citizens is called dictatorship. Welcome to it.
But only if we remain silent, as would appear to be the American custom. Discouragement governs the masses: That’s a calculated strategy, my friends! It’s a lie! Don’t buy it! Wrong-doers in public offices hate to have their crimes exposed: That’s why they clamp down on us! They are scared brainless! Scared of us! And guess what. We outnumber them by tens of millions to one. We DO have power as a collective voice, and we DO have power to unseat politicians from office! Kidding? Notice how many politicians are resigning to avoid scandal?
That’s just exactly why they came up with the ridiculous notion of terrorist American neighbors suddenly coming out of the woodwork. Make no mistake about it: S. 1959 “A Bill to Establish the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, and for other purposes” was established specifically to prevent us from going on an exposee. Which of course, would result in politicians dropping off like flies, just as they have been as scandal after scandal has surfaced. It’s just one more way to assure government secrecy, protecting the politicians instead of the people.
And we simply can’t let this happen. Because if we do, we are doomed.
Please act now, and immediately, by calling your Senators and urgently opposing S. 1959.
But very, very importantly, I think in order for our campaign to be successful, it is necessary and even vital to practice the compassionate understanding of the fear which motivates our freedom-gobbling politicians. By dealing with them softly and gently, we may be able to also soften the viciousness of their revenge on our truth-telling. Truth is a potent hackle-raiser, so the key to success in fighting the “Homegrown Terrorism” (coming from our government) which we now are facing, would be to brainstorm about how to assert our boundaries, expose the truth for what it is, while also doing so in a way which considers the fear response of the other side as we do so. Because it is out of fear that they so viciously retaliate. Compassion for that fear, and approaching the issues accordingly, would be key to undercutting the vicious agendas planned to do us in. Even where legislation may pose a legal threat, spirituality still has the power to transcend. The interactive laws of heart and spirit will always trump written laws.
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