Americans are closing their eyes and letting a new form of fascism get rol

By SPECIAL TO CITIZEN-TIMES
Jan. 4, 2005 6:46 p.m.
http://www.citizen-times.com/cache/article/editorial/73296.shtml

(excerpt)
Before we tune in to the second inauguration of President George Bush, perhaps you should read this. When we ignore history, we are condemned to repeat it. Oh, not here in the good ol U.S.A., you say. Never here, the land of the free and home of the brave, the bastion of democracy for the free world. Well, open your eyes, America. We may not relive the human catastrophe of the Holocaust on our own soil, but were learning how to borrow from what helped it start. Billboards in Florida extol George Bush as Our Leader, placed by the conservative media conglomerate Clear Channel, owner/operator of scores of TV, radio and other news media across the country. German for leader is Fuehrer. Our conservative government is railroading a dismantling of social programs under the guise of economic reform, while waving the banners of domestic safety initiatives as the best form of security for our nation. Unfortunately, security is not closed borders, guns on every corner and limited civil rights. We cant be secure if our roads, bridges and schools are crumbling; if our water, air and food are dirty; if people arent healthy because they cant pay to see their doctors; and if we must remain in the workforce until were 70-plus years old with an average lifespan of mid- to high 70s, what kind of American Dream retirement is that? And now we have the Orwellian Patriot Act and the just passed 563-page Intelligence Reform Bill (Have you read it? You authorized your conservative elected officials to vote for it. ...) to shield us from harms way and still no responsible economic solutions, no new jobs, no health insurance for all Americans. We did get, however, a conservative invasion of our schools to remind us of the apocalyptic future we have in store, as the Revelations-reading religious right proclaims at every turn, while generals and clergy boast that our presidents re-election was through divine intervention (Gen. William Boykin and Rev. Pat Robertson). As Hitler descended from the clouds in the Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film Triumph of the Will. ... Lets top if off with a Cornell University poll just released and reported by the Associated Press, warning that a near majority of citizens favor restricting the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans. Whats next, will they have to wear a red crescent on their clothes like Jews wore their Stars of David during the Third Reich?

I was back there in early April, still the same beautiful city.