Warning Signs to look for

[corporatewhore]

this was written by some one in our kucinich group
An open letter to fellow citizens:

In case you don't know me, my name is Carlos Rumbaut. Forty-four years ago,
as a child, I left my native Cuba. My parents had come to realize that the
once-democratic country they loved was slipping more and more into
dictatorship and totalitarianism.

If that were happening to our country today, what signs would we look for?
What about the following:

SHADY ELECTIONS

Questionable election results. The national leader is elected not by a
clean popular vote, but through edicts and fiats by judges and government
officials that belong to the party that comes to power. Electoral processes
are altered, ostensibly to ensure fair elections, but with less citizen
oversight and transparency. More of the electorate becomes suspicious of
the electoral system itself.

CORRUPTION

The wealthy and the powerful having undue access to and control of the
government. The government acting at the behest of, and for the benefit of,
highly placed and well-connected individuals and very powerful
corporations, instead of for the good of the general welfare. High
government officials being paid off by favors, revolving doors, positions
for friends, campaign contributions, or funds to the party in power.

RAIDING OF THE TREASURY

The government coffers are plundered. The treasury's savings turn into
debt. Government expenditures are diverted from programs that provide
services to the general population to programs that help keep the regime in
power. Taxes get cut for businesses that support the regime in power.
Government spending is funneled to crony businesses.

CENTRALIZATION OF POWER

The government is reorganized under more direct, central control. Multiple
agencies are rolled up into one, with one maximum leader. Government
employees start losing protections previously guaranteed by the
bureaucracy: job protection, whistle-blower protection, workplace safety
protection. The executive branch starts circumventing the legislative and
judicial branches. If a law can not be passed, even in a legislature
controlled by the party in power, the maximum leader puts it into effect
anyway by changing legal definitions, issuing regulations, or selectively
enforcing the law.

ONE-PARTY SYSTEM

The party in power increasingly takes over more and more of the government.
If you are not a member of the party, you are increasingly shut out. The
party's main function becomes not getting members elected, but actually
running the government. The party line becomes government policy. More and
more government positions are awarded only to party members. Opposition
parties become peripheral to the running of the federal government.

PROPAGANDA MACHINE

The government itself sets up a propaganda machine to control the opinions
of the governed. An office of disinformation is set up. Insinuation,
half-truths, casting of doubt, emotional appeals, fear mongering, spin,
selective science, and outright lies are all used to confuse and delude the
masses while maintaining a veil of justification over the actions of the
regime.

CONTRIVED WAR

A beefed-up military is sent to attack a concocted enemy, even if in
violation of international law and against world opinion. The propaganda
machine is cranked up to justify invading another country, even if that
country is not a credible threat. Fear and patriotism are used to rally
support for massive military action. Charges of helping the enemy are
leveled against those who question military action and a military build-up
that impoverishes the nation while enriching war profiteers.

STIFFLING DISSENT

There are less and less dissenting voices within the regime. Those that
question or oppose the maximum leader are removed from their positions. The
voice of the opposition party becomes irrelevant.

The media become more compliant, more a voice of the party line. Fewer and
fewer independent media are allowed to exist; printing and broadcasting
media come under more central control, with ties to the regime in power.

Government whistle-blowers get into trouble. Voices of opposition find
themselves without a job, with family members in trouble, or under vague
threats. The government takes a harder line against protestors and
demonstrators who speak out against the regime.

SPYING ON CITIZENS

The government turns against its citizens to find "suspicious" activity.
Laws are passed to allow more phone and email lines to be monitored, and
more searches with less justification. Library records are secretly
searched. Government compiles databases, not of people who have committed
crimes but of people suspected of something, and people who fit certain
"profiles". Suspicion by a neighbor is enough to get you in trouble. A
network of informants is developed nationwide for citizens to inform on
each other.

DIMINISHING OF LEGAL RIGHTS

Laws are passed that take away or diminish legal rights that were
previously constitutionally protected. Rights against unreasonable search
and seizure are diminished. Rights to due process are diminished. Rights to
free _expression and to free assembly are diminished.

At the same time, government gives itself more legal rights: rights to
wiretap and spy on law-abiding citizens, rights to any information about an
individual, rights to take away your citizenship, and rights to keep
government activities secret.

POLICE AS AN ORGAN OF THE REGIME

Local police start focusing not just on crime, but on rooting out dissent
to the party line. Legal definitions are expanded to make more types of
activities fall under the purview of the police. Local police are used to
infiltrate groups that are critical of the regime. The military and the
police start working together, taking over more of each other's functions.
National security agencies set up for internal intelligence start to merge
with those set up against external enemies, and more of their functions
migrate from information gathering to enforcement.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Isolated camps are set up where suspect individuals can be dumped, kept
incommunicado, afforded neither international nor constitutional legal
protections, and detained in indefinite legal limbo. No charges, no
lawyers, no due process, no visits, no letters, and trial by a secret
court. All in the name of national security.

Maybe we don't have to worry. Maybe these things only happen in foreign
countries after all.

[gator_in_Ontario]

1. Powerful.....

[Melodybe]

2. Depressing

[Nom de Plume]

3. Was there any doubt?

After the Coup de'tat in 2000?
After the "Reichstag fire" on 9/11?
Then wait untill the next .gov-sponsored "terror attack"

Should be the end of any pretense of democracy.