Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors."
- Lewis H. Lapham

The year 2011 will bring Americans a larger and more intrusive police state, more unemployment and home foreclosures, no economic recovery, more disregard by the U.S. government of U.S. law, international law, the Constitution, and truth, more suspicion and distrust from allies, more hostility from the rest of the world, and new heights of media sycophancy.

2011 is shaping up as the terminal year for American democracy. The Republican Party has degenerated into a party of Brownshirts, and voter frustrations with the worsening economic crisis and military occupations gone awry are likely to bring Republicans to power in 2012. With them would come their doctrines of executive primacy over Congress, the judiciary, law, and the Constitution and America's rightful hegemony over the world.

If not already obvious, 2010 has made clear that the U.S. government does not care a whit for the opinions of citizens. The TSA is unequivocal that it will reach no accommodation with Americans other than the violations of their persons that it imposes by its unaccountable power. As for public opposition to war, the Associated Press reported on December 16 that "Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. can't let public opinion sway its commitment to Afghanistan." Gates stated bluntly what has been known for some time: the idea is passe that government in a democracy serves the will of the people. If this quaint notion is still found in civics books, it will soon be edited out.

In Gag Rule, a masterful account of the suppression of dissent and the stifling of democracy, Lewis H. Lapham writes that candor is a necessary virtue if democracies are to survive their follies and crimes. But where in America today can candor be found? Certainly not in the councils of government. Attorney General John Ashcroft complained of candor-mongers to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Americans who insist on speaking their minds, Ashcroft declared, "scare people with phantoms of lost liberty," "aid terrorists," diminish our resolve," and "give ammunition to America's enemies."

As the Department of Justice (sic) sees it, when the ACLU defends habeas corpus it is defending the ability of terrorists to blow up Americans, and when the ACLU defends the First Amendment it is defending exposures of the lies and deceptions that are the necessary scaffolding for the government's pretense that it is doing God's will while Satan speaks through the voices of dissent.

Neither is candor a trait in which the American media finds comfort. The neoconservative press functions as propaganda ministry for hegemonic American empire, and the "liberal" New York Times serves the same master. It was the New York Times that gave credence to the Bush regime's lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and it was the New York Times that guaranteed Bush's re-election by spiking the story that Bush was committing felonies by spying on Americans without obtaining warrants. Conservatives rant about the "liberal media" as if it were a vast subversive force, but they owe their beloved wars and cover-ups of the Bush regime's crimes to the New York Times.

With truth the declared enemy of the fantasy world in which the government, media, and public reside, the nation has turned on whistleblowers. Bradley Manning, who allegedly provided the media with the video made by U.S. troops of their wanton, fun-filled slaughter of newsmen and civilians, has been abused in solitary confinement for six months. Murdering civilians is a war crime, and as General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, "It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral" and to make such orders known. If Manning is the source of the leak, he has been wrongfully imprisoned for meeting his military responsibility. The media have yet to make the point that the person who reported the crime, not the persons who committed it, is the one who has been imprisoned, and without a trial.

The lawlessness of the U.S. government, which has been creeping up on us for decades, broke into a full gallop in the years of the Bush/Cheney/Obama regimes. Today the government operates above the law, yet maintains that it is a democracy bringing the same to Muslims by force of arms, only briefly being sidetracked by sponsoring a military coup against democracy in Honduras and attempting to overthrow the democratic government in Venezuela.

As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship.The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths. The vicious mendacity of the U.S. government knows no restraint. Whether or not international law can save Julian Assange from the clutches of the Americans or death by a government black ops unit, both executive and legislative branches are working assiduously to establish the National Security State as the highest value and truth as its greatest enemy.

America's future is the world of Winston Smith.

http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2010/12/2011.html

where is all the hope and change?

this sounds more like hopelessness and despair..

Just a bunch of spam. In 2011 some will thrive and prosper
and others will despair and fail. Same as it ever was. No
point in quoting whole articles or book chapters. This is
only promotional bill posting not any kind of invitation to
discourse. Misleading Topic title as well.

Sure Obama has disapointed. I am starting to think our entire system is a fraud. I knew we were sunk when they clearly had a case to put Bush and Cheney on trial for war crimes, heck at least waterboard them untill they confessed. That would have been the leverage Obama needed to create hope and change. I am more pesamstic than ever in regards to our government. It seems to this american that our government is an extension of the business community, the only change we will get is what is good for business. The good news is come tuesday morning I can fall back into my work routine get paid my nice union wage and fall into my own personal comfort zone.

I cant think of many people who need to read an article like this more than yourself. I cant say I am suprised by the fact you missed the point completely. Maybe one should re-read it with an open mind and discuss it logicly rather than blurb out the first thing that crosses your mind. It would make for more intelligent comments.

Personaly I think the point the auther was makeing was that we run around claiming we love freedom and democracy but our actions prove differant.

i believe this to be true, but americans are being stupid here... i guess it is easier to ***** and not do anything about it, thats why the government won't do anything to help... if people were really tired of this, then why do they still get on the damn planes? seems that the people are in their own little world, caring enough to gripe, but not enough to do anything real...

The government has a plan for that allready. The best one can do is educate yourself. When enough people have had enough of elections run by the same people who market toothpaste change will come.

You need to spend some more time in Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and China and improve your ability to appreciate the
freedoms we enjoy in the U.S.A.

Oh I agree most of our "allies' are far more brutal than this country. I think the focus should be on the creeping police state. If you would have read the article you would see that is the jist of it. If you wait untill its as bad as China or the old Soviet Union it will be far to late.

I would not call Iran, N Korea, China, Russia, or even Saudia Arabia our "allies". Well Russia and SA are more ally-like than the others
but <ahem> we still have been known to have some points of disagreement.

I think the word I used was most of our allies are far more brutal. Our number one tradeing partner China comes to mind as well as Saudi Arabia both brutal police states.

I agree that they are brutal police states compared to the U.S.
and I am glad you cede my point. The U.S. is nowhere near nor
are we ever likely to drift toward the kind of Govt and religious
control exercised over the population in those countries thank
goodness.

I disagree with that of course. Just pointing out that america is becomeing a police state is enough to get you in trouble with homeland security. Didnt Fox news just turn in some old lady to homeland security for makeing anti american remarks? Here is the link to that one. Sounds like a nazi type state in the makeing.
Apparently no longer content to simply shill for a growing police state, Fox News decided to take what passes for the law these days into its own hands today, turning in a 46 year-old grandmother from Indianapolis, Indiana for having a “possible terrorist link.”

The entire case against the woman, one Kathie Smith, appears to have been based around data culled off of her Facebook page and the content of emails they exchanged with her. The Department of Homeland Security in Indiana confirmed that their first information about Mrs. Smith was when Fox News sent them a video in which she allegedly makes “anti-American comments.”

The case against Mrs. Smith is virtually entirely circumstantial, and is available, in all its grim details, on Fox News’ website.
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/12/28/citing-facebook-posts-fox-news-turns-in-indiana-grandmother-for-terror-link/

what exactly would it solve by putting bush and cheny on trial?
just to make you and a handfull of others happy?

Most thinking people and the rest of t he world understands Iraq was a lie. the only way we can possibly restore any credability is to gather the evidence, interview the witnesses under oath and dot the I's and cross the T's. I think about five minuts of water boarding will have a confession from both of them.

Didn't Oblowme say to drop the try Bush and Cheney thang?

no, it wasn't a lie, it really did happen

wow what WMDS did they find in Iraq and as proven above even the cia admited they were not in Iraq. That is the point despite the best attempts to drag the topic down to the playground level.

Here is a small reminder I can google this all day and get the same results.


(CBS) When no weapons of mass destruction surfaced in Iraq, President Bush insisted that all those WMD claims before the war were the result of faulty intelligence. But a former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller — a 26-year veteran of the agency — has decided to do something CIA officials at his level almost never do: Speak out.

He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it’s an intelligence failure. It’s an intelligence failure. This was a policy failure," Drumheller tells Bradley.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml

why do you keep saying the cia told him they weren't there??
take a wild guess who told him they were their...
bush did not go to iraq himself and look, ya know?

I agree. Its a flippin blog for goodness sakes. Just opinion.