Is their goal total isolation?

[Sydnie]

Think about it. 80,000 of us on the no-fly lists and they will be growing if the new Patriot Act is allowed to pass. Gas prices sky high in mid-winter, just imagine what they are going to be by mid-summer. Can't place a phone call because they may be listening. Newspapers that only present one thought, no matter who writes it.

Are we going to be forced to create a political underground to share ideas? Leaving notes to each other in the roll of toilet paper in the corner gas station?

They are effectively cutting us off, not just from the world, but from each other too.

What are we going to do about it?

[madeline_con]

1. We have not been cut off.

This IS a "political underground".

"Can't place a phone call ..."

Fuck 'em. I stay in contact with a non-military family member in the M.E. anyway. They can kiss my ass. I've done nothing illegal, and neither has he.

"What are we going to do about it?"

I can't speak for anyone else, but I do not intend to roll over and play dead. I will continue to fight, write, sign petitions, donate funds and do whatever else it takes to wrest control of my country from the hands of the mentally deficient cretins who have hijacked its government! :bounce:

[Sydnie]

7. I was speaking in the physical as in the Underground Railroad

and the Underground that was active in Germany and other countries during WW2.

I was talking about the affront on our basic liberties and the privacy that we deserve.

I don't intend to roll over either. I was opening it up for discussion for some brainstorming following the wonderful speech Gore just delivered.

As has been stated many times before, ranting on a web site is not going to do it alone. We need action! I was calling for action.

[madeline_con]

10. Your intent wasn't clear in the first post.

I didn't realize you were talking about Germany during WWII. :shrug:

[Sydnie]

11. No harm, no foul

Sometimes I over think it so much in my own head, that I expect everyone else has already thought these thoughts and I don't make them as clearly as I should.

I was grocery shopping today ... wanna guess what I was thinking about? :hug:

[earthboundmisfit]

2. Isolation is one of the principal tactics of an abuser...

This misadministration is like an abusive partner in SO many ways...

[yurbud]

3. Did you notice the name of this website?

[justabob]

6. but it is a publicly available forum

not really 'underground' is it? You can get here with one click, likewise the gov can shut it down with one click.

edit: I can't spell

[Sydnie]

8. Exactly my point. Thank you for making it for me!

I was talking about a "physical" underground.

[yurbud]

9. see my other post--being out in the open serves a purpose

[justabob]

4. yes... part of their goal anyway... divide and conquer

We'll have to do what others have done in the past, the kinds of things you mention. I feel like doing something like an 'underground press' is in order whether they keep pushing us back or not. I think the only way to get around the corporate media is to take matters into our own hands. Blogs are great, but who knows how long THAT will be allowed and they aren't well-known enough to most people. We are going to have to take it out to the streets. Post fliers, strategically place pamphlets etc. It will be slow (and may get dangerous ala the White Rose group in Germany), but I don't think we have time to wait for promised progressive networks and AAR to get the word out.

[yurbud]

5. Do the opposite--we are the majority, and the more openly we talk

the more afraid the far right becomes and the weaker their grip on power.

If a bunch of illiterate farmers in South America can run off corporate crony presidents, the Russians could face down the last of the Soviet hardliners, we can do the same to a bunch of spoiled frat boys who have never wiped their own asses.

It's our country and we can take it back.

[justabob]

12. I agree up to a point

I agree that speaking out and speaking truth is the way out of this mess, and I have no intention of giving up, but my point it this: If we keep on the current trajectory, standing in the open is not going to be an option for a lot of people for very much longer. Planning for the worst is not a bad idea... DU and the like may not be here for us, especially if the latest version of the Patriot Act is enacted.

[Sydnie]

13. Now you are getting into my head

Scary place to be isn't it?

[justabob]

14. No scarier than my own :)

I stay awake at night thinking about this kind of stuff.

[Sydnie]

15. I am so glad that it's not just me

See, I knew someone had to had thought this before too.

Thanks. I don't feel so alone now.

Now, how are we going to kick their butts? :shrug:

[justabob]

20. You are not alone

There are a lot of us who have been trying to ring the warning bells for a long time. For the most part we were called alarmists, paranoid etc. It can't happen here they say... Americans don't goosestep they say. Well, more and more people are wising up to the problems we are facing, but there is still that nagging, "but, but... this is America!" No one wants to believe it is possible, probable at this point. I have moments of weakness too, so I am not meaning to be harsh to those who can't yet believe it.

To answer your question about what we are going to do.... I don't know. Most of the things I thought of to do should have begun years ago, but it is too late now. Things now call for a much more agressive approach, but I don't have any good answers. What I have done is speak as often as I can about this stuff to anyone who will listen. I am a college student and I used every paper I have written in the last 3 years whether the subject was lit, rhetoric, history, government, philosophy, to point out some aspect of the current regime. I gave speeches in my speech class. I write and write and write, but I am a nobody. That is all I am able to do right now, which I guess is better than nothing, but I still feel paralyzed and helpless watching the train wreck happen... frame by frame in super slow motion. It is excruciating.

[yurbud]

16. when we are the majority, it is our fault if they do worse and we allow it

[justabob]

19. I appreciate your optimism

but what if we don't ever come back into power? What if 2004 was the last election? If I am understanding the OP, s/he is referring to the worst case scenario.... full blown oppression and tyranny with no window dressing of democratic institutions or order. I know that is what I am talking about. These folks running the show will go all the way, unless the People, not just democrats, rise up in open revolt (figuratively or literally)

[Strawman]

17. TV is their turf

They'll let us blow off steam on the internet. The paranoid, Liddy/Poindexter/Nixon types among them will always want to spy on us, and others on the right will go along just because they get off on being dicks to us, but as long as they have the TV newspeople/commentators tamed, the Karl Roves of the conservative establishment aren't too worried. TV defines the mainstream and they have mastered the art of managing TV content. We can even have protests of 100,000 people that are more or less invisible to most of the country as long as the corporate media is calling the shots. They'll give "equal time" to a staged counterprotest of 50 people and give viewers false impressions of the distribution of opinion.

TV really is the enemy. Gore was spot on.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Classic tactic of ANY dictartorhip, not only Germany

in WW II