McCain offers nothing but fear itself

Fliers found on windows in Southern Indiana

It appears that in the end - in the final stretch before election day - all John McCain and Sarah Palin have left to offer is fear.

This weekend they have launched a massive campaign to get out the 'fear' vote. Fear that Obama is a terrorist. Fear that he is a 'scary Muslim.' Fear that he isn't an American. Fear that he will raise taxes, turn the entire country into a communist gulag, fear that he 'isn't like us' and therefore will betray the interests of white, fearful Midwesterners and Southerners.

It is a last ditch campaign of horror designed to divide and conquer along racial/urban lines that stretch back to the Civil War.

McCain has nothing to offer that any sane voting American would want -- that is, if he was open and out front with the real ramifications of his Bush-like, Neocon platform. McCain's health care plan would leave most of us uninsured by our employers and begging on the street when our houses are foreclosed on due to unpaid health care bills.

McCain is running only on his 'experience' as an absentee senator... and racist fear.

So this year, this election, we Americans have an amazing choice before us. We can choose the campaign of unity and hope... or the campaign of fear. It borders on the biblical. For most of us, the choice is obvious. We hope that it is obvious even to those who are - at this moment - being barraged with 'be afraid!' robocalls, virulent hate-radio announcers and nasty windshield leaflets.

FDR (that 'socialist' president who saved America during the Great Depression) once said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." The same is true today. Let us hope that this is one lesson our grandparents did pass down to future generations of voting Americans.

May hope prevail.

Keith Olbermann Special Comment

Shouting 'Fire' in a Crowded Theater

The Hate-talk Express reaps dark rewards

It has begun. As we knew it would. As we warned it would.

McCain/Palin would not stop. They spewed their hateful accusations and dark innuendos; they declared that Senator Barack Obama was 'palling around with terrorists' and that, by virtue of his middle name, must himself be a Muslim (he isn't - but what if he was?) and a terrorist.

Imagine... calling a fellow senator a terrorist!

And so they reap their dark rewards. And - unfortunately - so does all of America.

This is the GOP 'leadership' that will inspire a nation? This is all we can expect from a former war hero? This is their Christianity -- inciting American jihadists?

In Little Rock, Arkansas:

Little Rock police are investigating an early-morning home invasion that has left a KATV morning anchor hospitalized.

According to authorities, Anne Pressly, 26, is in critical condition at a Little Rock hospital after being found in her home with what police call “severe wounds.” Early reports said Pressly had been stabbed or cut, but Monday afternoon investigators confirmed the injuries occurred from blunt force trauma to the head and upper body.

-- snip --

Recently, Pressly landed a small role in the new Oliver Stone movie, “W” which opened in theaters last week. (She played Ann Coulter.)

Update from Arkansas Times Blog:

The crime had earmarks of a targeted act against a single person. The police have told the local neighborhood association, however, that patrols in the area will be increased until a suspect is arrested.

Pressly has a small role in the current movie, "W," Oliver Stone's portrayal of George W. Bush. She played commentator Ann Coulter in the movie, much of it filmed in Shreveport.

Update from Under the Dome:

She was on her Facebook page last night at 9:51 thanking those who went to see her 30 second part in the movie "W." Pressly has been with KATV since June, 2004.

In Ashville, North Carolina:

A dead bear was found dumped this morning on the Western Carolina University campus, draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs, university police said.

Maintenance workers reported about 7:45 a.m. finding a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout near the Catamount statute at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police.

"It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head," Johnson said.

In Hays County, Texas:

In western Hays County, Texas, at around 8PM Sunday night 19 October, thugs trashed my car while I was having dinner with some friends.

Out in the country. Miles from anywhere.

My "Obama 08" bumper sticker was torn off the right rear bumper, a 20-lb rock was dropped through the back window, 2 stolen Obama yard signs were shoved through the gaping hole in the window, and a cryptic almost "OBAHA" (or something...) was scrawled in orange spray-paint on the drivers side front and back doors and windows.

In Jackson, Mississippi:

Government employees in a north Mississippi county were told not to use public property for political activity after a comptroller used a work computer to forward a chain e-mail asking people to pray for Barack Obama's defeat, a county official said Wednesday.

DeSoto County Administrator Michael Garriga said Comptroller Tom Arnold sent the message, titled "Pray, Pray, Pray," sometime in the past few days to at least 35 addresses on the county's e-mail user list. He said Arnold could face disciplinary action as a result.

"We don't need to be expressing any political or religious views when we're at work or when we're using county resources," Garriga told The Associated Press in an interview.

The e-mail implies that Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is Muslim. Obama is Christian.

"We have the power to change the course of this election and to keep a man as suspect as Barak (sic) Obama from leading our country to who knows where with his message of 'change'; a change which I fear will be away from our Christian ideals, and away from Christ, and further away from one nation under God to one nation under Allah," the e-mail said, according to portions published Wednesday by The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tenn.

In Chicago, Illinois:

Two supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama found handwritten death threats in their mailboxes Thursday and reported them to Villa Park police.

A 74-year-old woman and a 46-year-old man with Obama signs in their front yards near the 600 block of South Villa Avenue received similar letters that had a Villa Park Village Hall return address. "Get the Obama signs off your property—now," the letter reads. "Failure to obey this order will result in the immediate death of all family members." Both residents said they will not remove their signs, though the man, who had voted Republican for 25 years before switching parties this year, said his wife is worried about letting their 7-year-old son play alone outside.

In Princeton, West Virginia:



In Richmond, Virginia:

On Friday night, a large Obama sign was stolen on Bailey Bridge Road. It was replaced with something that has shocked the community.

In the sign's place was a confederate flag.

"I was kind of upset and shook up," said Reverend Leroy McLaughlin, the signs owner.

Rev. McLaughlin does not hold back when he describes the culprits.

"...evil folks, mean and got the devil in them."

Stolen campaign signs are a problem every year around election time but Rev McLaughlin says this act crossed the line and seems racist.

In Fayetteville, North Carolina:

Someone slashed the tires of at least 30 vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum on Sunday during a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies are investigating. The tires were cut while people were inside the Crown Coliseum listening to speeches, said Maj. E. Wright of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Many of the damaged vehicles were parked on Wilkes Road. Representatives from Obama and Sen. John McCain’s campaigns said they were unaware of the acts.

Susan Lagana, the North Carolina communications director for Obama, said it was extremely disappointing and unfortunate that “people would have to experience something like that.”

Mario Diaz, communications director for McCain, did not respond to a call late Sunday.

Sarah Revis, who lives on Wilkes Road, said the slashed tires left several women, including a single mother and a toddler, stranded and upset. At least four tow trucks were sent to move the vehicles from the Crown, Revis said.

In Columbus, Ohio:

Ohio's elections chief said the state's Web site is running on limited capacity after several security breaches.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in a statement Monday that the site has been partially disabled to protect state records and data. A spokesman said he is unaware of any personal records being accessed.

The state highway patrol is investigating the breaches.

The statement said officials are also investigating other security threats, including a suspicious package covered with threatening messages and containing an unidentified powder that was mailed to Brunner's office last week.

The statement said the office has also been inundated with death threats in e-mails and telephone calls.

Brunner's office has been embroiled in controversy over Ohio voter registration rules.

In Caledonia, Wisconsin:

In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner.

“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.”

The man eventually stopped and the Caledonia police were called. Takehara was asked if she needed medical assistance, but she was not seriously injured. Instead, she says she was shaken up by the homeowner’s reaction.

“This negative stuff has to stop,” said Takehara. “We’re all Americans. This is all about protecting our democracy, not about attacking each other.”

Where will it break out next?

This domestic terrorism isn't going to stop. Not until the instigators, John McCain and Sarah Palin stop inciting it.

Who is the terrorist now, John McCain? No really -- because the only people I see "palling around with terrorists" right now, are you and your running mate.

I fail to see how I am expected to believe that you love America as much as I do. Your words and your actions say otherwise. "By their works you will know them." I wonder... do you even remember who said those words?

Colin Powell comments on Obama smears

Classy words from a classy man.

Passive-aggressive racism in the media

American Heritage Dictionary
rac·ism (rā'sĭz'əm) n.

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

I was encouraged to read some very strong words this week from White Republicans, condemning John McCain's initial refusal to quiet the racist overtones coming out of his campaign. Unfortunately the national media often lags far, far behind.

This morning I was floored to see an article in the Washington Post - an article purporting to address the issue of race now creeping into daily election dialog - take Democratic congressman John Lewis to task for saying basically the same thing that Republicans Andrew Sullivan and Frank Schaffer said in their own powerful essays.

No mention of the fact that others who are not African American, not civil rights leaders (and not Democrats - heaven help the man who is all three) had evoked similar and equally powerful images before Lewis said a single word.

From the Washington Post, Issue of Race Creeps Into Campaign:

Yesterday, civil rights leader John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, became the latest advocate to excite the racial debate, condemning Sen. John McCain for "sowing the seeds of hatred and division" and accusing the Republican nominee of potentially inciting violence.

In a provocative twist, Lewis drew a rhetorical line connecting McCain to the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, and through Wallace to the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham that killed four girls. McCain voiced outrage at the comments, which also drew a mild rebuke from an aide to Sen. Barack Obama.

McCain has treated the subject of race gingerly, moving quickly to reject loaded remarks by some supporters while at other times accusing the Obama campaign of "playing the race card" and claiming racism to avoid legitimate criticism.

McCain has been 'moving quickly to reject loaded remarks from some supporters?' What planet has Anne Kornblut been living on all week?

My response:

"Lewis yesterday used a racial frame to leverage one of the harshest cases against McCain this year."

Here we go again.

When a White Republican named Frank Schaffer blasts McCain for "deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence," gosh, that's OK... although none of you in the national media covered his words (I just happened to read the OP-ED in the Baltimore Sun.) I like the fact that Schaffer said that we will hold McCain responsible for any violence... because we will.

And there are many other White Republicans demanding that McCain back off as well; some with very strong words of their own. White Republican Andrew Sullivan said "McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin." I see you didn't cover that.

So why is it that as soon as an African American civil rights leader brings this issue up -- and believe me, he would know -- suddenly he is playing the race card and you write about it here in the Washington Post? Take a good, hard look at yourselves please.

I live in Indiana. I am White and I am very worried that McCain has stirred up racist Klan types that still live in this state -- I also worry about violence breaking out at the polls. All of us who are White or Black non-racists and who have ever come into contact with racists and racist threats are worried that McCain has been stirring a very dangerous pot that could easily turn into violence among his followers.

Lewis has every right to say what he feels needs to be said without being accused in the national media of playing the race card! McCain threw it down first -- we are all answering it. What you in the media are plainly saying is that there is still a double standard - for you - concerning what an African American man can say about racist attacks. And guys -- that is racist.

I could go on and on - with example after example - of this media double-standard. What I think about it really doesn't matter. The real issue is that I can say whatever I want about racial inequality because I am White (that, and no one listens to me anyway - I'm not a democratic congressman from the Deep South.)

If only... I could make one suggestion to the national media, I would encourage them to tread with care when accusing anyone of 'playing the race card' until they have checked more than their own syntax and spelling. Double-standards lurk in the white spaces between the text.

That bus has left the station

McCain spins into damage-control mode:

LAKEVILLE, Minnesota (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain was booed at his own rally on Friday as he tried to rein in increasingly raw anger among supporters stunned by Democrat Barack Obama's lead in the polls.

Speaking in a Minneapolis suburb, McCain -- who had escalated character attacks on Obama in recent days -- found himself in the unlikely role of defending his rival in the face of sometimes hostile questions from frustrated Republican loyalists.

He drew boos from a crowd packed into a high school gymnasium when he insisted to a skeptical supporter that Obama was a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president of the United States."

McCain appeared to be trying to dial down the ugly tone that has crept into his rallies, including anti-Obama taunts from the crowd, as his campaign has faltered amid a financial crisis that polls show most Americans believe Obama would be better able to handle.

McCain's own sharpened rhetoric, including questions about Obama's association with former 1960s radical William Ayers -- an issue he raised again on Friday -- has been seen as counterproductive to attracting unaffiliated voters.

"We want to fight and I want to fight, but we will be respectful," McCain said during a question-and-answer session with voters at a campaign event in Lakeville. But when he then added, "I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments," the crowd jeered loudly.

Hang around with rattlesnakes and you will eventually get bitten Senator McCain. You let this go too far. I'm very glad that you are attempting to clean up the dangerous mess you have made, but you're a little late.

What changed between yesterday and today? Did you get a few phone calls from angry (and sane) Republican Senators and other legislators telling you to lay off the hate rhetoric?

Why didn't you do this yesterday, sir? Or the day before? You could have stopped the 'hate talk express' before it even left the station. You want to be commander in chief, right? This is your idea of leadership?

Or is this simply campaign damage control?

See what happens when you squander the public trust? As Lincoln wryly noted: "If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem."

Holding McCain and Palin responsible

I think it is time we all -- as a civilized nation -- tell McCain and Palin in no uncertain terms that we will hold them personally responsible for any violence that results from the hatred they are deliberately inciting at their campaign rallies.

We have seen this before. We are not going back there.

Republican Andrew Sullivan (with more bipartisan voices joining every day) warned McCain to back off the hate rhetoric:

McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a "secret" terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.

But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin.

For God's sake, McCain, stop it. For once in this campaign, put your country first.

Republican Frank Schaffer wrote an angry OP-ED that ran today in the Baltimore Sun:

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there.

Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.

John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.

Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.

We will hold you responsible.

Yes we will hold you both responsible, although I greatly fear that scenario (and McCain - if he really loved this country - should fear it too. Palin is probably too ignorant, too much the religious intolerant to truly grasp the danger in her words. McCain knows better -- and apparently doesn't care.)

This nation will explode like a powder keg if anything happens to Barack, or if there is any violence at the polls. People are already so angry and anxious that it won't take much for everything to dissolve into violence and chaos. To deliberately incite such behavior is reckless and very dangerous.

As a lifelong student of the Civil War, I can't think of anything worse than 'neighbor vs. neighbor.' And I condemn anyone who would deliberately stir that pot. Shame is too mild a word. Can someone who deliberately incites violence be labeled a 'terrorist' himself?

Is that what you want Mr. McCain -- for this entire nation to dissolve into violence? Are you willing to risk the destruction of our entire nation just to get elected?

And to think I once respected you!

Just STOP. It's not simply shameful and unbecoming -- you are endangering your political opponent and our nation.

If you are indeed losing this election, then for God's sake lose with at least a little moral dignity - dignity befitting a Vietnam vet and former POW.

Nation before party (and certainly before your own political power-trip.)

Obama: Its easy to rile up a crowd

Daily Show: Six Degrees of Desperation

NY Times: The Politics of Attack

Excellent, must-read editorial in the New York Times today, about - you guessed it - the cynical depths to which McCain and Palin are willing to drag campaign discourse:

It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks. But Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember.

They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison.

Also mentioned was a point I made at least a month ago, and that still confuses me today. Who is this dark new, cynical McCain - this McCain that pals around with intolerant hate-mongers?

Is this the same man who called Bush and Rove to task for running a smear campaign against him in 2000? Is this the same man who called out right-wing, religious hate-mongers - the same people who swoon over Palin - as "agents of intolerance?"



Note the answer to McCain's question "Who is the real Obama?" Some guy in the crowd (or more than one) yells out 'terrorist!' Does McCain correct him? No -- he goes right on talking as if it never even happened.

McCain has lowered the bar of dirty politics to a whole new level.

How can one man change so drastically in eight years? Which guy is the real McCain?

We certainly expected better from Mr. McCain, who once showed withering contempt for win-at-any-cost politics. He was driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear, orchestrated by some of the same people who are now running his campaign.

No kidding. I don't like this McCain at all -- and I don't trust him.

Happy Birthday... RIP

Independence Day was supposed to be a happy day. A celebration of the founding of our nation: a nation of free people, a constitutional democracy. Representation, reason and the rule of law. It was a great dream. Too bad we are forced to watch it slowly dying before our eyes.

How do you celebrate a nation's birthday as it lies bleeding in the dirt? Picnics and fireworks... or roses? Odes to it's former greatness, or dirges to it's demise? Once, this nation was a beacon to the world:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Freedom of religion, freedom to live in harmony and pursue happiness without fear of repression. Freedom of speech, freedom to congregate... and a government of elected officials that served the people.

That was the plan, anyway. Last one out the golden door, please turn off the lamp.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. - James Madison

The Canary in the Coal Mine

Today I read a brief post about a Holocaust survivor who is moving back to Germany.

His reason? "I have seen this all before."



He isn't the only one. I suppose many of us see the signs, all around us and grapple with our own internal screams of warning.

I spent much of my childhood and well into adulthood denying any of my German ancestry, simply because I could not come to grips with German complicity in the Holocaust. I did not want to be 'German.' In my mind, Germans were monsters... Nazis. Even the language repelled me, because I could hear within it, the echoes of Hitler's maniacal ranting.

Imagine... how ironic. Because now I cringe to be 'American.' And my anger at those who have perverted everything this nation stood for is hard to express. The word 'outrage' falls short. Betrayal, perhaps.

It is painful to envision the many people our government is capturing, torturing and holding without due process, or any proof of guilt; spirited away to secret camps... and this only a few generations removed from WWII, when own proud grandparents liberated Europe from fascist terror. We have become the enemy our grandparents fought.

The evil has come home to roost among us.

Sliding down the slippery slope

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. - Thomas Jefferson

We are moving backwards as a nation. In the days of my childhood, my parents supported the Civil Rights movement. Today, we increasingly hear stories like the following: of black youths threatened by whites with nooses; then facing ' legal' injustice in an all-white courtroom. I type the word 'white' in lower case to make a point here: it does not deserve to be capitalized. It has become a small word, representing a small kind of people.

In a small, still mostly segregated, section of rural Louisiana, an all white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white tree" at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The black defendant, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other. The jury quickly convicted Mychal Bell of two felonies - aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16-year-old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other black youths await similar trials on second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy charges.

This is the America of the New Millennium. This is the America of George W. Bush.

We have regressed in our treatment of race, separation of church and state, health care, the environment, our adherence to the rules of law and justice - and now we even condone torture. The decay is nearly complete.

A few days ago, Ann Counter declared - without shame, and on National TV - that she 'wished John Edwards had been blown up by terrorists.' No one arrested her for these hateful words; although if a liberal, or heaven forbid a black man had made a similar remark, he would undoubtedly have landed in Gitmo. We've always had that nasty double standard.

Scooter Libby is now a convicted felon; and yet he will not serve jail time because our president, the highest elected official in the land (I use the word 'elected' loosely,) will not adhere to the rule of law. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me. It's only that pesky double standard again. This administration doesn't even respect the Constitution. Any law is subject to the 'Decider's interpretation; and all are secondary to amassing and holding political power and wealth.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. - Thomas Jefferson

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson

The beginning of the end

Once upon a time, our nation's founders had high hopes for this fledgling democracy. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Many of these same founders wrote that they didn't fully expect that this new democracy, this republic could endure the test of time - not without constant vigilance on the part of the citizenry.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. - James Madison

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. - Abraham Lincoln

We have lost our vigilance, and we are on the brink of losing our democracy. Thomas Jefferson once said "Every generation needs a new revolution." I suppose by these standards we did pretty well, because this democracy has lasted for over 200 years. They say all good things must come to an end. Is this the end of the dream?

The Holocaust survivor is right: we are not who we once were. I see what he sees, but I am staying. This is, after all my country... my responsibility.

I am always frustrated when I watch dissenting voices in the GOP and DoJ simply resign their jobs, rather than blow the whistle and try to save our government. I personally can't quit, leave, give up, or stop speaking out when I see our nation sliding down the slope. As long as we continue to speak for truth and justice, democracy lives in us.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. - James Madison

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. - Thomas Jefferson

This is not the fight for an elderly, Holocaust survivor... but it is my fight, my responsibility. I believe that in every life, there is an opportunity to stand up and be counted - to stand for something more than simply surviving, eating, sleeping and living our own private existences.

I don't recognize this country anymore, and I wonder if the America I knew as a child is gone - or perhaps vanished long before I was born.

Perhaps, as Frank Zappa once said, the reality of democracy was over long ago.

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre. - Frank Zappa

Maybe everything I believed in truly was an illusion; a myth created for a high school history book.

In spite of the sadness I feel today, I will speak out on behalf of the America that I once thought I knew: until they come for my keyboard. I owe a debt to those who paid for this idea with their blood. I owe it to them to speak on their behalf, as they have fought on mine.

I also believe that we at home are the guardians of our troops overseas. We are their voice, we have their backs when they are unable to speak out for themselves. If I can do nothing else to change the course of human events, I will continue to pressure Congress into bringing them home. Perhaps one day, Congress will choose to save us all from this wretched, lawless presidency. I suspect they're running out of time. Democracy is gasping now.

Howard Zinn taught me that history always has several sides to it; the side told by the 'winner,' in the history books, and the other sides.

As I grew up, I gradually learned about the KKK (they are in our neck of the woods,) our treatment and near annihilation of the American Indians - and our treatment of African Americans has been abysmal since the beginning. I also discovered that our government was conducting secret activities around the world. I was a college student journalist during Iran/Contra, and I remember covering it for our paper.

But the nation was always based on a higher ideal: we could always choose to elevate ourselves (and many have tried) to the standards, the possibilities that our forefathers offered us. They made it clear that liberty begins in the mind, and is safeguarded with knowledge, education and above all, reason.

Because history is a complicated thing, I always clung to the fact that at least our ideals were in the right place. Now those very ideals are under attack... and this I cannot tolerate.



Happy Birthday America. Rest in peace.

John Edwards calls out Coulter

"We're not going to tolerate this kind of behavior, we're going to stand up, and we're going to fight."

You said it brother! I'm liking you better every day. Stand up to these screwball bullies!