To: epicure who wrote (2364 ) 6/23/2003 1:32:28 PM From: Yogizuna Read Replies (1) | Respond to >>>> The Bush administration, let me repeat it again, they are not conservatives; they are statist reactionaries. They want a very powerful state, a huge state in fact, a violent state and one that enforces obedience on the population. There is a kind of quasi-fascist spirit there, in the background, and they have been attempting to undermine civil rights in many ways. That's one of their long term objectives, and they have to do it quickly because in the US there is a strong tradition of protection of civil rights. But the kind of surveillance you are talking about of libraries and so on is a step towards it. They have also claimed the right to place a person -- even an American citizen -- in detention without charge, without access to lawyers and family, and to hold them there indefinitely, and that in fact has been upheld by the Courts, which is pretty shocking. But they have a new proposal, sometimes called Patriot Two, a 80 page document inside the Justice department. Someone leaked it and it reached the press. There have been some outraged articles by law professors about it. This is only planned so far, but they would like to implement as secretly as they can. These plans would permit the Attorney General to remove citizenship from any individual whom the attorney general believes is acting in a way harmful to the US interests. I mean, this is going beyond anything contemplated in any democratic society. One law professor at New York University has written that this administration evidently will attempt to take away any civil rights that it can from citizens and I think it´s basically correct. That fits in with their reactionary statist policies which have a domestic aspect in the economy and social life but also in political life. <<<<
