What it's Like To Be Labeled As a Terrorist

In Naomi Wolf's book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. she outlines the steps that Hitler and other dictators took to convert a free society to a fascist one.

First step: Remove civil right protections for the "other" by identifying them as fear-inspiring threats to ordinary people's lives. Bush-Cheney did this with "terrorists".

Second step: Extend the definition of "terrorist" to anyone who gets in their way in taking over the government.

Lingle has done that. She has labeled peaceful protestors as "terrorists". She has somehow equated unarmed citizens blocking a giant, unwanted (and illegally operating) ship with flying planes into the World Trade Center and killing 3,000 human beings.

Once we are labeled as terrorists, then it is OK to injure and arrest us. It is OK to apply draconian sentences of 10 years to a young person on a kayak getting in the way of a large vessel. It is OK to mace us. It is OK to drown us. It is OK to rough us up. It is OK to kill us.

Those people who don't see the bigger picture, who, in fact, are encouraging Lingle to arrest, kill and harm protesters are playing into the hands of the elite few who control our government.

Our freedom is teetering on a razors edge. Those who are standing firm against the erosion of our civil rights should be thanked for risking their lives...not reviled.

"First they came for Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
Rev Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

Whether or not you support the Superferry, it is time to support our freedom and civil rights. Speak out now against Lingle's Unified command...or risk no one speaking for you.