The American nightmare

[emad]

Guardian

The Bush administration's defence of unauthorised phone taps shows a chilling disregard for the rule of law, writes Philip James

Wednesday December 21, 2005


Is America becoming what it most fears: a big brother state ruled by diktat, where no one is protected from eavesdropping by the secret police, and everything is permitted in defence of the homeland, including torture?

Perhaps I'm naive, but I grew up believing that America was somehow different, that alongside the corporate greed, brash materialism and barely functioning social safety net, a unique society prospered. This America was a land of limitless opportunity, a magnet to those escaping oppression, offering prince and pauper alike the possibility to dream big.

This America still exists, but it is being eroded by an administration that believes it can rule outside the rule of law. They are fast replacing the American dream with an American nightmare, an Orwellian world where memos defending torture are penned in the department of justice and judges are made redundant in the public interest.
The irony of President Bush's proud statement this week on the Iraqi elections was inescapable. "The Iraqi people now enjoy constitutionally protected freedoms and their leaders now derive their powers from the consent of the governed," he said at the start of a press conference in which he defended eroding those freedoms at home while asserting his power to act without judicial check.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1671984,00.html

[billybob537]

1. The EVIL bastards {Smirky/Snarly}

don't know a thing about freedom it's just a sound bite to cover up thier evil plots.