This is in Defence of LEFT or F word to go & read this 4 page discussion on Indias vilified humanistic ,fair & equitable distribution advocates…
NION http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20020624&fname=bernie&sid=1
Talkin’ About The F-Word (Redux)
I’ve been steering clear of the F-word, because too many on the Left fling that term so carelessly that it soon loses its truth-punch…
BERNARD WEINER
Dear Readers: This article was first published in December of 2001, in the wake of 9/11, when the grim outlines of police-state-like tactics were first starting to appear on the American horizon. It might be useful to compare and contrast – whoops, it turns out there isn’t much to contrast – between then and now. Doing so may help us understand the forces we’re facing and how to respond as Bush&Co. continue their move toward a more militarist society. At appropriate points, I’ve added in italics inside double brackets ]] some observations from our contemporary situation.
Reading the essay this way might serve as a reminder that those of us warning then of the due-process dangers ahead faced epithets like “paranoid” and “conspiracists” – much like those today who are connecting the dots that take us from Bush&Co.'s pre-9/11 knowledge and the Administration’s manipulation of a frightened Congress and citizenry that have followed. – BW ]]
First, they came for the terrorists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a terrorist.
Then they came for the foreigners,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a foreigner.
Then they came for the Arab-Americans,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t Arab-American.
Then they came for the radical dissenters,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was just an ordinary troubled citizen.
Then they came for me,
and by that time
there was no one left to speak up for me.
(Adapted from Pastor Niemoller’s 1945 quote about the Nazis)
I’ve been steering clear of the F-word, because too many on the Left fling that term so carelessly that it soon loses its truth-punch. But things are happening, so quickly, in this country that are taking us closer to a brand of near-fascism that is frightening in its seeming acceptance by the American populace and in its implications for the future of American democracy.
The non-domestic corollary: America, already resented and hated for its arrogant attitudes and policies around the world, is behaving more and more like a mad bull on a Pax Americana rampage.
In short, we appear to be at one of those moments in American history where the executive branch, using the genuine need to respond to a terrorist attack of massive proportions, is badly overreaching in both domestic and foreign areas. (The first draft of Ashcroft’s anti-terrorism law even recommended suspension of the rule of habeus corpus, which would have allowed for indefinite incarceration without charges or trials.)
In effect, Bush&Co. have been able to do exactly that to hundreds being interrogated for a connection to terrorism; when people are “disappeared” in third-world countries, we get all weepy-eyed and angry as mothers and wives bang pots &pans in the public squares, trying to find out what happened to their husbands and sons. Here, aside from civil liberties organizations, we remain basically silent. ]]
The Administration figures it can get away with its current actions, and assume even more power, because the Congress and the American people are frightened and willing to bend over backwards to make sure the President has the power he needs during “wartime.”
Recent polls indicate that Americans are deeply troubled by giving the government, any government, that kind of unbridled power, but, given the current terrorist threat, seem willing to trade off SOME of their Constitutional protections for personal security. ]]
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Father is like the referigerator light .You only notice it when it is fused!