[Infowarrior] - OpEd: We Are All Prisoners Now

[Richard Forno]

 We Are All Prisoners Now
by Paul Craig Roberts

We Are All Prisoners Now
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=12113

Paul Craig Roberts

"They¹re locking them up today
They¹re throwing away the key
I wonder who it¹ll be tomorrow, you or me?"
~ The Red Telephone (LOVE, 1967)

At Christmas time it has been my habit to write a column in remembrance of
the many innocent people in prisons whose lives have been stolen by the US
criminal justice (sic) system that is as inhumane as it is indifferent to
justice. Usually I retell the cases of William Strong and Christophe Gaynor,
two men framed in the state of Virginia by prosecutors and judges as wicked
and corrupt as any who served Hitler or Stalin.

This year is different. All Americans are now imprisoned in a world of lies
and deception created by the Bush Regime and the two complicit parties of
Congress, by federal judges too timid or ignorant to recognize a rogue
regime running roughshod over the Constitution, by a bought and paid for
media that serves as propagandists for a regime of war criminals, and by a
public who have forsaken their Founding Fathers.

Americans are also imprisoned by fear, a false fear created by the hoax of
"terrorism." It has turned out that headline terrorist events since 9/11
have been orchestrated by the US government. For example, the alleged
terrorist plot to blow up Chicago¹s Sears Tower was the brainchild of an FBI
agent who searched out a few disaffected people to give lip service to the
plot devised by the FBI agent. He arrested his victims, whose trial ended in
acquittal and mistrial.

Raising doubts among Americans about the government is not a strong point of
the corporate media. Americans live in a world of propaganda designed to
secure their acquiescence to war crimes, torture, searches and police state
measures, military aggression, hegemony and oppression, while portraying
Americans (and Israelis) as the salt of the earth who are threatened by
Muslims who hate their "freedom and democracy."

Americans cling to this "truth" while the Bush regime and a complicit
Congress destroy the Bill of Rights and engineer the theft of elections.

Freedom and democracy in America have been reduced to no-fly lists, spying
without warrants, arrests without warrants or evidence, permanent detention
despite the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, torture despite the
prohibition against self-incrimination ­ the list goes on and on.

In today¹s fearful America, a US Senator, whose elder brothers were (1) a
military hero killed in action, (2) a President of the United States
assassinated in office, (3) an Attorney General of the United States and
likely president except he was assassinated like his brother, can find
himself on the no-fly list. Present and former high government officials,
with top secret security clearances, cannot fly with a tube of toothpaste or
a bottle of water despite the absence of any evidence that extreme measures
imposed by "airport security" makes flying safer.

Elderly American citizens with walkers and young mothers with children are
meticulously searched because US Homeland Security cannot tell the
difference between an American citizen and a terrorist.

All Americans should note the ominous implications of the inability of
Homeland Security to distinguish an American citizen from a terrorist.

When Airport Security cannot differentiate a US Marine General recipient of
the Medal of Honor from a terrorist, Americans have all the information they
need to know.

Any and every American can be arrested by unaccountable authority, held
indefinitely without charges and tortured until he or she can no longer
stand the abuse and confesses.

This predicament, which can now befall any American, is our reward for our
stupidity, our indifference, our gullibility, and our lack of compassion for
anyone but ourselves.

Some Americans have begun to comprehend the tremendous financial costs of
the "war on terror." But few understand the cost to American liberty. Last
October a Democrat-sponsored bill, "Prevention of Violent Radicalism and
Homegrown Terrorism," passed the House of Representatives 404 to 6.

Only six members of the House voted against tyrannical legislation that
would destroy freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and that would
mandate 18 months of congressional hearings to discover Americans with
"extreme" views who could be preemptively arrested.

What better indication that the US Constitution has lost its authority when
elected representatives closest to the people pass a bill that permits the
Bill of Rights to be overturned by the subjective opinion of members of an
"Extremist Belief Commission" and Homeland Security bureaucrats? Clearly,
Americans face no greater threat than the government in Washington.