[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Amazing.

It's hard to call myself an American after seeing this.

Amy Goodman, a brilliant journalist and peace activist, is arrested and rung up on bogus charges of "inciting a riot" while trying to find out why two of her producers were jailed during the Republican National Convention.

Peace activist! Inciting a riot?

I think it's the half-witted, knuckle-dragging, power-tripping police thugs who are the ones actively seeking to incite a riot. And, they're doing a good job of it. After all, the easiest way of pissing off those who seek to defend or restore the Constitution is to tear it up right before their eyes.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so disturbing. Instead, I'm just angry, and I'm tired of stories such as these coming out of a nation which lies to the world and itself that it is some sort of beacon of freedom. We are a nation of oppressed people living beneath the regime of inhuman torturers and astounding incompetence. We can not even define freedom any more. We gladly gave up our rights under the auspice of security, and we gave those rights away in order to stuff the pockets of the greedy, corrupt few who continue to send our nation's sons and daughters to die in the desert in their foolish, unjustifiable war --a war built upon nothing but lies.

In exchange, what have we gotten?

Lindsay Beyerstein has an example of that "security" we've received.

Glenn Greenwald has more.

What a stupid, stupid country we've become. If I had the money, I'd leave this country, and I'd be laughing all the way across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, I'm stuck here and left to wonder what the fuck happened to a nation where I once felt proud to be a citizen.

-DP

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 9/01/2008 11:12:00 PM