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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (33963)	12/31/2003 7:30:22 PM
From: laura_bush	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

At year's end, signs of dictatorship abound in Washington Wayne Madsen As 2003 winds to a close, it is perhaps timely to assess the state of affairs in the nation's capital. As a long time resident of Washington, DC, it is striking how this city has changed-and not for the better. The telltale signs of dictatorship and fascism abound in this city on the Potomac. Some of the signs-concrete barricades and 8-foot walls around monuments-are apparent. Others, like video cameras, although more subtle, are every bit as ubiquitous. For those who have never visited Washington, DC, or who traveled here during better times, the city that is suppose to represent the aspirations of the American people is now a hollow shell of its former self. The White House Ellipse is now a security bivouac. The grassy area that once played host to Frisbee games between dogs and their owners, touch football scrimmages, and throngs of tourists marveling at the south façade of the White House are largely gone. They have been replaced by chain link fences, concrete Jersey barriers, menacing black Secret Service SUVs, squad cars, and security "men in black" armed to the teeth. Sitting in the midst of this security encampment is the National Christmas Tree. Once surrounded by rosy-cheeked youngsters who marveled at its thousands of ornaments and lights up close, the tree is now viewed after dark from afar-its future as endangered as its rooted relatives in the Rocky Mountain and Alaska National Forest and Wilderness areas. Vice President Dick Cheney sent out thousands of Christmas cards this year that extolled the Bush administration's international imperial agenda by suggesting God approves it. Taking a quote by founder Benjamin Franklin out of context, Cheney's card read, "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" Fascists, imperialists, and colonialists throughout history have tried to invoke God's name in justifying their global ambitions. The Bush-Cheney regime is no different and hopefully it will meet the same fate as its fascist and imperial antecedents. Across Constitution Avenue, the Washington Monument is surrounded by an 8-foot wall, reminiscent of the one that used to divide Berlin and the one now being built to bifurcate the West Bank. A similar wall surrounds the U.S. Capitol-the so-called "peoples' house," and one has been erected on one side of the Supreme Court. The steps of the Supreme Court are now largely restricted to access by "we the people." The Capitol Building is constructing an underground security control center that will soon screen Girl Scouts and 4-H Club members as suspected terrorists. If you are doing a news report or a documentary and set down a camera tripod on the National Mall or at any of the monuments, you will be confronted by nasty Park Police, who order you not to film without permission from the Park Police. Bush's thugs in the Interior Department even go after their own. US Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers was recently fired because she had the temerity to question orders from above to use her thin forces to take on even more "homeland security" surveillance duties. The famed Washington Metro system now bans the sale of newspapers in its stations. Newspaper vending machines have been boarded up. Trash piles up on subway platforms and trains because waste containers on the concourses are also banned. Recorded announcements appeal to passengers to report anyone who looks "suspicious." Recently there was an incident in the Metro Center station in which a vicious Metro police German shepherd viciously lunged at a man's seeing-eye dog. The police dog's handler seemed amused by the incident while the poor blind man was truly as upset and disoriented as his canine companion. The ghosts of Bull Connor of Alabama (who ordered German shepherd attacks on African American civil rights marchers) and the dog handling Nazi guards of Auschwitz must be smiling down on Washington, DC. Continues...... prisonplanet.com