interesting to see this in a standard newspaper. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Original source URL: http://www.reformer.com/letters/ci_5248468 Saturday, February 17 Road to fascism Editor of the Reformer: I have read with interest the recent letters to the Reformer debating the impeachment of George Walker Bush and his regime. I, too, love my country, and so I understand deeply how people can bridle at any suggestion that our leader doesn't deserve our support. However, most people don't understand or see what crosses my desk in terms of correspondence and articles every single day. Since 2002, and Bush's announcement at West Point of his "pre-emptive war" doctrine, this country has been running willy-nilly down the road toward fascism. Oh, the roots of it, and some of the practices, have been in place for a long time prior. For all of my life (I was born in 1948), this country has been waging wars or overthrowing rulers in countries around the world, trying to promote what was good for the profits of the big corporations. Only now, though, has corporatism begun to display a plainly fascist face at home, with the president and his cronies deliberately negating several provisions of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. No longer are we safe in our homes from unreasonable search and seizure. No longer may we openly question and challenge the government's policies without fearing repercussions or retaliation. It may surprise some of the Reformer's readers that leading neo-cons (the political sect that now holds sway in Washington, those behind the Project for a New American Century), have openly proposed that the United States should dominate the world militarily, economically and politically for the foreseeable future. They have even proposed, and are implementing, a policy that calls for fighting all sorts of new kinds of wars, even in outer space and in the Internet! Even more ominous, they have plans to make weapons that target people by their genetic background, the ultimate formulation for racism in warfare. Who do you suppose their audience is, their political base, for this kind of nonsense? If you don't believe me, see the Web site at: www.newamericancentury.org Search the site's "Publications and Reports" area, find their September 2000 paper called "Rebuilding America's Defenses," and on page 60 of that report, read "... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool." This corresponds to recent news reports indicating that the U.S. government is funding massive new secret programs in the area of biological warfare. Why don't we hear about this in the media? The last time a leader (Hitler, in Germany) openly tried to exterminate a population based upon their racial characteristics, practically the whole world went to war against them. I am deathly afraid that if U.S. leaders continue on this tack, declaring an endless war that cannot be won, stationing our service people all over the world to maintain our domination, and fighting unjust wars that they lie to get us into, the entire world will eventually recriminate against us for it. I do not want my children to face a future where the rest of the world understands that the United States is responsible for most of the great injustices of our time. This is why I favor ending the war in Iraq, preventing the neo-cons' next planned war in Iran, and rolling back U.S. imperialism around the world. If we are able to do this, then maybe we can even begin to address the monumental social injustices that plague us here at home, such as epidemic violence, racism and the incarceration binge. I hope that peace and justice activists reading this message will also resolve to work to put the United States on an equitable economic footing with all the peoples, countries and economies in the rest of the world. The way things are now, millions upon millions of people are suffering and dying every year because things are so very inequitable. Please ... let's take a responsible place in the world community of nations. Live simply, so that others may simply live. John Wilmerding Brattleboro, Feb. 12 -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org Community Democracy Framework: http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/
