A New Culture of Fear

by carol wolman <cwolman@mcn.org>

The American culture of openness and friendliness is quickly being
replaced by a culture of fear- fear not of Bin Laden and Al Queda, but
of our friends and neighbors.  We are encouraged to inform on one
another.  We are afraid to let the dog off the leash, to jaywalk, to
express our beliefs openly lest someone tell the authorities and we get
in trouble.   Even here in tolerant Mendocino, CA, the old hippies, who
used to be the backbone of the community, are now worried that someone
might harass them for having long hair, and accuse them of being a
terrorist- an ecoterrorist, perhaps.

The enemy is within.  It’s Timothy McVeigh, it’s the anthrax killer,
it’s the neighbor who snitches, it’s the administration that is gutting
our civil liberties and terrorizing us with threats to start a nuclear
war- with Iraq? with China?  This talk is encouraging terrorists to
unloose a nuclear holocaust upon homeland America- through a container
that has not been inspected, a suitcase bomb, an attack on a nuclear
power plant.  Meanwhile, Bush is destroying the structure and sentiment
of international cooperation by withdrawing from the ABM treaty, a
treaty that has put a cap on the nuclear arms race or the past 30 years.

The scariest part is that so many Americans are going along with it.
Why?  They seem to want the sense of security that a militarized, highly
controlled- in short, fascist- government can provide.  What are they
afraid of?  Losing the materialistic way of life that is provided by the
current system?  Facing their guilt about suffering from obesity and
diabetes while the so much of  the world is starving?  Waking up to the
quickly deteriorating state of the planet?   Nuclear war?

The rush toward a militarized state with tight state control is
happening so quickly that it’s almost too late to stop it.  By the time
Rumsfeld announces that the Constitution is ouitdated, and the executive
branch is withdrawing from it unilaterally, it will be too late to do
anything about it.   We must act now.

The perfect vehicle is at hand- the ABM treaty.  If we can persuade the
Senate to insist on its constitutional duty to oversee treaties- never
mind the outcome, we can at least strengthen the rule of law and slow
the mad rush toward fascism.  Please sign the petition to the Senate
online at  http://www.PetitionOnline.com/abmtrty/petition.html and get
your friends to sign. I will be taking a printout, with your comments,
to visit senators from March 9th-16th.  Please let’s get lots of
signatures by them.

If anyone can join me in this lobbying effort, please let me know.

Thanks for this essay to my husband, Robert Clapsadle and my friend
Joanna Macy.

See also "Diagnosing Dubya," by Carol Wolman

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Six Christians in Saudi Arabia have been anticipating the dreaded knock at their door by officers of the Ministry of Interior (MOI), their names extracted by force by MOI officers after interrogating Christian leader Prabhu Isaac, arrested July 19.

The most recent Christian arrested was Baharu Mengistu who, like the others on the MOI’s newly compiled most-wanted list, was a foreign national and, also like the others, had been working and living in the city of Jeddah. It is now confirmed that Baharu [30 years old] was taken by the Saudi MOI on the morning of Aug. 20, 2001. The MOI were waiting for him outside of his place of employment as he came to work. Unlike the others detained before him, Baharu was able to spend a few hours with his wife because he had been tipped off that the MOI were coming to get him...more

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