By Dave Lindorff

I was a speaker last night at an anti-war event sponsored by the

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Progressive

Democrats of America and Democrats For America in Lincroft, NJ, near

the shore. It was a great group of activist Americans who want to see

this country end the Iraq War, turn away from war as a primary

instrument of policy, and start dealing with the pressing human needs

of the country and the world.

Yet even in this group of committed people, one woman stood up

during the question-and-answer session and said, “I want to get

involved in writing emails to members of Congress urging them to cut

off funding for the war and other things, but if I do that won’t I end

up getting put on a 'watch list’” or something?”

I told her the short answer was yes, she probably would. In George

Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s America, no one is safe from such spying, and

even from harassment, as witness Tom Feeley, the man behind the website

Information Clearing House, who had armed men invade his house at night and threaten his wife complaining about his First Amendment-protected effort to publicize important stories on the Internet.

But I also told her that it didn’t matter. She should defend her

freedom of speech and her right to petition for redress of grievances,

just as she was defending her freedom of assembly by attending last

night’s event.

The only demonstrably true statement George Bush has made in his

sorry eight years in office is that the Constitution is “just a

goddamned piece of paper.” While it wasn’t the point he was making,

when he reportedly shouted this at a couple of Republican members of

Congress who were questioning the constitutionality of some of his

actions, he was right that the nation’s founding document is only worth

the parchment and ink it’s composed of, unless people use it and defend

it.

There is a remarkable and palpable fear abroad in this land—not a

fear of terrorism, but a fear of speaking up, a fear of being labeled

as “different” or as a “troublemaker.”

People will lean over and whisper their opinions, if they think they

are anti-Establishment, as though someone might be listening. People

write me after some of my columns run, praising me for my “courage,”

though why it should be perceived as requiring courage to merely write

something in America is beyond me.

The worst thing is that every time someone says she or he is

afraid, or acts afraid to speak or write what she or he is thinking,

five more acquaintances become equally scared and silenced.

The corollary, though, is that each time someone forgets or ignores

or rejects that fear, five people gain courage the do the same thing.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t people monitoring, and

reporting on, what we say. I know our government is busy doing that. I

assume that my Internet activities are being monitored by the National

Security Agency. I assume my phones are tapped. I assume there was some

agent or informant among the fine people at the church last night. But

these Stasi wannabes have no power if we don’t let them frighten us

into silence and inaction.

What I find discouraging is the widespread acceptance, even on the

left, of this effort to intimidate us, and the pervasive attitude of

fear that has grown up around us. I spent a year and a half living in a

truly fascistic society in China, where there are real, concrete

threats to life and liberty faced by those who stand up and say what

they are thinking, and yet sometimes I think that ordinary people I met

in China were braver about stating their minds than many, or even most

Americans are. I’m not talking here about saying things like that you

think the Post Office is dysfunctional, or that you think federal

bureaucrats are corrupt or that taxes are too high. I’m talking about

questioning the system, or challenging the war, or protesting military

spending. Chinese people would tell me all the time that the Chinese

Communist Party was a corrupt gang of thugs or that you could not get

justice in a Chinese court. Chinese people are closing down factories

that short them on their pay. They have rallied in the thousands and

burned down police stations when corrupt police have raped, killed and

then covered up the death of a young girl. They have marched in massive

impromptu protests at the theft of their homes through eminent domain.

If you want to see where we’re headed here in America, check out

the workplace. There, we Americans have, through years of collective

cowardice and unwillingness to stand together in organized labor

unions, allowed our constitutional freedoms to be almost completely

erased. Today, an American workplace is more akin to a police state

than to a democratic society. Say what you’re thinking on the job, and

you’re liable to lose it. Wear a shirt that says something the boss

disagrees with, and you either remove that shirt or you are unemployed.

Even that final refuge of free speech, the bumper sticker, can get

workers in trouble if the wrong one shows up in the company parking

lot. That loss of will and of freedom has in no small way contributed

to the loss of jobs and the decline in living standards of American

workers.

It’s time for all of us to put a stop to this creeping usurpation of our liberties.

The anxious woman who asked her question came up to me after the

meeting and said proudly that she would not be afraid, and would start

signing on to protest letter-writing and emailing campaigns.

We need lots more like her.

__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His

latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and

now available in paperback edition). His work is available at

www.thiscantbehappening.net