We really are like the frog that is slowly being boiled to death, but because the heat is being turned up so slowly, we don't feel it. This story, if told throughout mainstream media with appropriate outrage, surely would move the American people to revolt against the anti-Americanism of Republicans like James Sensenbrenner, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. But it won't happen, will it? Because Americans have been tranquilized by a corporate-dominated media that only sees profit in keeping Americans stupid, unmoved, and uninvolved.
Read Bill Piper's report on how the totalitarian thinking of one Republican House member wants to turn America into a land of snitches in the government's war on drugs. His legislation would require, among other things, that neighbors and family members report almost any drug violation within 24 hours to the police or face stiff jail sentences for not doing so. For instance, a mother who knew her son gave his college roommate a marijuana joint would be required to report this to police within 24 hours or be faced with prosecution and a mandatory two-year jail sentence.
Isn't it only one small step from this to reporting whether your neighbor opposes the war in Iraq, or opposes Bush's social security policies, or opposes the Patriot Act., or that your neighbor is a Jew? And just as bad perhaps, because most people would not obey such a reactionary law, it would turn millions of American mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters into criminals.
Forget Orwell's fictional Big Brother. Anyone who has read even the smallest slice of the history of the Gestapo will recognize what Sensenbrenner's legislation would create - namely, a society of fear, mistrust, and hate.
Let's not prevaricate about this, folks. This is one of the most anti-American, anti-democratic pieces of legislation to find its way into Congress, ever.
READ IT HERE
http://www.alternet.org/rights/22048/
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