Another Day, Same Old Totalitarian Government

Friday, September 01, 2006  -  reddit

The AP is reporting that the military is seeking bidders for a program to begin monitoring news reports on the failed conquest of Iraq. See, things are so bad over there right now, that the only thing that Bush's administration can think to do is trick you into thinking everything is fine by infulencing the news. Nevermind making efforts to actually stabalize the country, that takes actual effort, and people who are smart. Why bother when you can just spread propaganda, which takes no effort, and be done by mentally retarded people, like Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney?
The project will cost American taxpayers another $20 million over two years. $20 million that could be going to real causes, like replacing all of the hardware the military forcefully took from the National Guard, leaving the homeland essentially defenseless. Or you could take that $20 million, and reduce the Republican budget deficit to $339,980 million instead of $340,000 million. Heck, I bet DHS could use that money, since it says Congress has short changed it ever since it was created, and can't even afford to buy the chemical detection machines that the British use in their airports.

But that would be spending money wisely, something Republicans have no clue about. Instead, we're going to spend that $20 million of tax payers money to pay a private company to monitor the U.S. and world media, and report back to the military about any "negative tones".

As the article states, this seems like a logical extension of the program revealed a short time ago where Bush was caught paying Iraqi news services to print stories written by the U.S. military -- paid propaganda.

People say that comparing the U.S. today to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia is unfair, but it's really not. No one wakes up one morning and decides to be a totally evil son of a bitch, it's a progression. You wake up one morning and decide to cross the line today because you think it might be worth it tomorrow. Maybe paid propaganda isn't such a bad thing after all, right? If it helps the cause...what about spying on Americans which courts have consistently ruled to be illegal without a valid warrant? Hey, if it helps save lives, maybe that's a line worth crossing as well.

But it's not worth it, because every day you cross another line, you get closer and closer to being like them. Today you would never consider torturing an American citizen for information, but we've crossed so many lines already that torturing foreigners is acceptable to Bush and other Republicans. How many more days, how many more lines crossed before we get to the American?

You wake up today and say "I'd never cross that line", but eventually, you will have crossed so many lines, that you will have become the thing you hate the most, and you won't even realize it. In fact, you'll probably think anywho who disagrees with you has taken the side of the enemy, because you will have drifted so far from acceptable behavior and reality, that you won't recognize who the good guys are anymore. It's called paranoid dillusion.

This country cannot afford to be taken down this path any longer. Vote for Democrats this fall, or abstain from the election if you can't bring yourself to do that. Bring accountability back to this country, help stop the craziness. Stop the torture, the spying, and the killing.

If we fail at the moment of truth, I fear we may begin finding things like this hanging over us.