This nation was built on basic principles that seem to have been forgotten.  That the people have the right to speak out against what they feel is unjust, the right to worship without fear of oppression, the right to be secure in their homes and properties, the right to live without fear.  What has happened in the last hundred fifty years contradicts these rights, these freedoms.

                Unfortunately, what is happening now with the pre-emptive "war" with Iraq, the Homeland inSecurity Act, the Patriot Act, and the republicans' answer to "Mein Kampf," "Rebuilding America's Defenses."  The war is unjust, but it is unpatriotic to speak out against it, decry the fact that it is unconstitutional, against international law, and un-American in and of itself; the Homeland inSecurity Act and the Patriot Act remove the rights of privacy and security from the government, and invite the tyrannical powers within the government into our most private places because of some perceived threat from "terrorists"; and the Republican manifesto explaining why the United States is better than everyone else, and why we, as a nation, must strive to control the world's opinion of us (through force, if necessary).

                A little history lesson is in order here.  The Civil War was started because the Southern states wished to form their own government.  Industrialization was on the rise in the North, and those states were pushing for the "modernization" (the abolition of agriculture) in the South.  Interesting piece of trivia: there were slave owners fighting on both sides of the war, there were slave owners in the North.  "But the war was about slavery," you say, aghast.  Sort of.  Slavery was the issue that Lincoln used to rally support among the people who were opposed to it in the North.  States Rights and the Right of Secession were the issues that the anti-slave, pro-freedom members of the Confederacy were fighting for.  But States Rights weren't a big issue for the people of the North.  They were more interested in the smaller issue of slavery (which would have quietly gone away without the war-- machines were cheaper and more efficient than human beings, and didn't have the nasty habit of running away).  The thing that should have had the nation calling for Lincoln's head on a platter, the Constitution, was not only ignored, but also amended to strip States of their rights.  The people were happy that slavery was gone (along with a few hundred of their friends and family members), and that the nation was whole and safe.

                Skip ahead a few years.  Think about the issues in the headlines that you're passionate about.  (A few examples: abortion, school shootings, drugs, and (just because it's in our face every day) war.)  Think about what issues are at stake that are being concealed by the more emotionally-charged issues.  Think about who is being punished for the "crimes" that are committed, think about the fact that this nation is based on the ideal of E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One.  Think about the voices that aren't being heard because you hear only your own voice shouting your own Truth.  Take something as mundane and everyday as Christmas.  The only things that are open on that day are 7-11s and the Super Wal-Marts.  (Most gentleman's clubs even shut down on Christmas.)  What is that saying to the people who see December 25^th as just another day, with the exception that everything is closed?  What does that tell the Buddhists, the Taoists, the Janists, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, Shintoists, Jews, existentialists, solipsists, atheists, or other "ists" that worship (or not)?  That is going the opposite of what E Pluribus Unum was meant to mean.  It doesn't mean, "Out of Many, One shall prevail and have Absolute Control over the way that All live."  It means that "Out of many languages, cultures, traditions, religions, and nations, we become One nation."  No single culture has cornered the market on rightness or righteousness.  The multicultural base of the United States is what makes it strong, but is also its greatest weakness.

                (Nutbunnies-- I'm going way off-track here.  But I'm making a good point.  I think.)

                Let's take a peek at the last "free empire," the "Empire where the sun never sets."  England.  You remember-- the guys who we fought against to secure our freedom?  (Not the Native Americans-- we fought against them in order to secure more land under "Manifest Destiny."  Had the Native American nations banded together, they could have slaughtered the pioneers, instead of being slaughtered.  Sort of like the Celtic nations, when the Germanic tribes booted us off of the continent, or when the Romans tried to invade the British Isles, or when the English decided that there were too many of us on the British Isles, and decided to slowly commit genocide on the Celtic nations.)  The English have no culture of their own.  They stole what they have from the nations that they conquered.  The English language itself is a mongrel tongue, an amalgamation of several European languages.  It doesn't have a discernable grammar or sentence structure, because those were stolen from vastly different languages.  However, back to the point.  The English once controlled a large part of the surface of the planet.  They conquered China by getting the Chinese people hooked on opium.  They invaded India, and Africa, and attempted to strip those nations of their identities, because the English found them to be "uncivilized" and "barbaric."  They taught them King's English, and educated them in English schools and universities.  (The indigenous peoples of the British Isles fared worse-- they were punished for speaking one of the Gaelic dialects, and for participating in the Celtic culture.  They were stripped of their identity, much like the African slaves who were brought to America.  The exception is that the slaves had no record of their homelands.)  They believed in the first meaning of E Pluribus Unum:  Out of Many, One shall prevail and have Absolute Control over the way that All live.  They were the conquerors, the writers of history, the culture of tyranny.

                Does anyone see the parallel that I'm about to draw?  There is one religion, one language, one way of life that has become exalted in America.  Those who do not belong to that culture are exiled to the fringe of society, at best.  Law enforcement agents are not supposed to profile people.  They are supposed to treat every citizen equally, from the ghetto to the White House.  It doesn't work that way.  The law works in favor of the rich, and against the poor.  The recent scandals should prove that.  The executives of Enron might be spending the rest of their lives in jail (a Club-Med style penitentiary), but the investors and the workers now have nothing to retire on.  There were average people who had worked all their lives to build a retirement fund that would secure their golden years, and ease the burdens on their children, who will now have to spend the rest of their lives working so that they can eat food and sleep indoors after retirement.  There are people who have to endure the constant reminder that they are the unwelcome minority in a Christian ("Family of Man" anyone?) society during religious holidays.  There are kids who have to have the reasons explained to them why a cross was set on fire in their yard, or a swastika spray-painted on their door, because they are not like the majority of the people.

                And there are children starving in Iraq because the United States demanded that there should be sanctions against that nation because Saddam Hussein is a bad man.  Thousands of parents don't explain to their children that they don't get to eat ever again because the President of the United States is mad at the president of Iraq.  They give them the only reasonable explanation.  (Which is why the rest of the world isn't too crazy about the US.)

                (That gets me close enough to the point that I was making.  Maybe.)

                Another little history lesson.  The United States used to be an ally of Iraq.  We gave military support to Saddam Hussein while he was busy fighting the evil Iranians.  Now that we're fighting the Iraqis, the Iranians arent that evil anymore.  The US supplied the raw materials for Iraq's nuclear program, and we also sent a bunch of biochemical agents to them.  Like anthrax.  And small pox.  (Just in case you haven't been reading the paper, the US government is preparing for a small pox outbreak.)  Looking to their neighbor, Afghanistan, we can find that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) put the Taliban in power, and the US built Tora Bora.  Because we didn't want the Soviet Union there.  We trained bin Laden, and President Reagan praised him for his courage.  We created the mess that we got into in Afghanistan.  Another little factoid is that we put Manuel Noriega in power.  Remember him?  The guy who is now sitting in the federal maximum security prison?  The United States spent money, resources, and human lives to take away the power that we gave him.

                How many other puppet regimes have we put into power that seemed like such a good idea at the time (read:  "that would keep their people in place while we exploited the hell out of them")?  How many more are we willing to prop up and bring down, at the expense of innocent human lives and in the name of freedom?  When will we learn that the United States is not the voice of the world?

                Why do the American people continue to turn a blind eye to this?  America is not the only way of life, our culture is not the best.  It might be the best for some, but not all.

                Why are we so willing to give up our freedoms in exchange for perceived security?  That is saying that those who flew airplanes filled with perfectly good human beings in them into office buildings filled with other perfectly good human beings have won.  (I'm not sure anymore that the attack came from an enemy without)  When the people of the nations of the world learn to live side by side, the governments must follow.  Until that happens, there will be no real freedom.

                Peace.