The Silencing of America: Americans Are Afraid of Bush’s Violent Regime

[Guest guest]

The Silencing of America: Americans Are Afraid of

Bush’s Violent Regime

 

By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

 

 

George W. Bush has done more to scare Americans into

silent complicity, and rip free speech from the

American fabric, than any president I have seen this

lifetime. Creating “no protest zones” patrolled by

American riot squads, aiming high-powered weaponry on

unarmed American people TRYING to exercise free

speech, it is clear Bush’s regime is NOT supportive of

free speech rights, no matter what babble comes out of

his mouth. Bush supports free speech as long as that

speech supports everything he does blindly, like the

“pro-war” protesters. As a matter of fact, Seattle

Police Chief Kerlikowski even said on public radio

that he and his force treat the pro-war protesters

differently than the anti-war protesters (without the

riot gear and intimidation factors) because the police

perceived the pro-war protesters to not be hostile to

the police. What would be a reason for that

Kerlikowsi? Perhaps aiming machine guns at unarmed

children in permitted protest zones, and shooting off

concussion grenades and pepper spray from canisters

the size of fire extinguishers at their moms, sort of

soured the mood between the anti-war protesters and

police? Ya think?

 

Does free speech mean you have the right to say

anything? No, it does not. You cannot yell “fire” in a

crowded movie theater, for instance. Hell, you cannot

sing feminist comedy outside the Biergarten in Santa

Cruz, Ca., without getting obscenity tickets from

police. Does free speech mean you can do it

anonymously? I am not sure about that either, since an

American exercising free speech can be FORCED to

produce identification for American police at any

time. Does free speech cost money? Sometimes, yes. At

the Pike Place Market in Seattle, Wa., if you want to

give a political speech in that Public Market, you

will be required to give the City $25 for those free

speech privileges in the public square or be arrested

for trespass. I am actually confused as to what those

boys ARE fighting for in Iraq. I keep hearing

“freedom” as the reason. Americans are killing people,

and people are killing Americans, over “freedom” but I

do not know what that rhetoric actually means.

 

Freedom: it is a term governments throw around like

religions throw around the word “faith.” It is an

illusive concept at best, as freedom for one often is

not freedom for another. Freedom for the American

settlers to steal land from the American Indians and

then kill those who would not just vanish and give

their lands to the “free” settlers, was no freedom for

American Indians. Many Americans, myself included, do

not believe the reason we are in Iraq is to “fight for

freedom.” We have enough work to be done on that front

in America, what with skyrocketing homeless rates,

children going hungry, wage slavery, the abuse of the

elderly, the poor, and vets, the gigantic class chasm

between the social classes, the racism and sexism,

cutting social programs to build up the military for

Bush, the Conqueror…As a matter of fact, the Bush

regime has done more to FIGHT FREEDOM IN AMERICA than

any president I have witnessed as an adult. I have

never felt I was taking such great risks to my own

safety for so little in years prior. Simply using free

speech in America is frightening and takes courage

nowadays. Not since the Vietnam War have such violent

police and “intelligence” behaviors hit American

streets as has been routine in the last few years

since Bush came to the throne. And the Vietnam War

protests took decades to heat up. This war is less

than one year old and America is ripping apart at the

seams over Bush’s oil war.

 

So let us see how free speech works in America. You

are a citizen like me. You think this war is sick, so

you go out to the public square when the war is

declared and decide to USE FREE SPEECH to hold a big

NO WAR sign. And you are met with a thousand riot

police dressed like Darth Vader with baseball

bat-sized clubs in their hands, thumping their palms

anxiously in a row, drooling, so to speak. These riot

police have hidden all identifiers and refuse to speak

or follow the law, as per Seattle Muni Code 3.28, and

identify themselves when asked. People are scared and

leave with their children. Chaos and fear is present

due to these riot police. A climate of fear, anxiety

and terror surround the permitted protest zone. A

group of protesters decide to march. They leave on the

sidewalks, following all traffic lights, crossing with

the lights. All of a sudden, riot police start

blocking them off and forcing them to block sidewalks

and into the streets. Unarmed people, 300-500 people,

are then falsely imprisoned for breaking no laws, and

contained and abused by this mob of non-talking,

violent Robocop Darth Vaders. We are not allowed to

leave, we are never warned we will be contained. We

are not told what the Robocops wanted, they hit people

until they bled, they have no organization, they are

like terrorists, is all I can say. This exact scene

happened on March 22, 2003 in Seattle, Wa. Those

American cops embodied FEAR, FIRST AND FOREMOST, TO

THE AMERICANS THEY WERE UNLEASHED UPON, myself

included. That was what those Robocops were there for,

TO STRIKE FEAR INTO ANY AMERICAN WATCHING, OR

PARTICIPATING IN, ANTI-WAR ACTIVITIES. The police and

government committed crimes against anti-war

protesters on March 22, 2003, whether or not they

broke any laws. And it made me ANGRY, not AFRAID.

 

And due to this violent, oppressive police behavior, a

bunch of self-appointed peace police emerged from

within the Seattle protest community. Paternalistic

“peace police” who basically coerce the protesters

into doing whatever police say, out of fear of

violence from the police. There will be no militancy

at ANY U.S. protests and the police almost have the

peace community trained now to keep its own people

silenced and subdued…I am called an “instigator” when

I go to Seattle protests, for example, for merely

trying to get police on the scene to identify

themselves as required by law. So I do not go to

protests in Seattle anymore, as they are more a show

of complacency and submissiveness to the state, than

any protest of state policy. The same people keep

usurping the security positions at these Seattle

protests, the same security people who led us into the

bloody batons of the riot police on March 22, and also

June 2, 2003 at the LEIU protests. I will not let

those “Peace Police” lead me like a lamb to the

slaughter for Seattle Police to abuse and assault

anymore. The situation has gotten to one of police say

who they will or will not attack at protests, and they

have effectively caused a chasm between the protest

community because the self-appointed peace police have

let them. So now, the Seattle Police, at least, have a

coalition of Judeo-Christian home-owning SUV-driving

people calling themselves “peace protesters” who

basically refuse to “protest” and condemn and squelch

anyone who does “protest,” while running all

“security” for the protests, as if they were appointed

by someone to keep peace with police, not protest for

peace for the world.

 

And “free” America supposedly supports this trend of

law enforcement agencies COMMITTING CRIMES ON AMERICAN

STREETS in the name of preemptively stopping possible

crimes. Hmmm. Let’s see, with that method, in the end,

you end up with two sets of criminals at “best,” one

set of criminals at “worst.” I heard Condi Rice

testify that we need to preemptively treat people like

criminals to stop crime. That is very very NOT FREE.

What our government does not seem to get is we do not

need their PERMISSION to SEE THEIR ABUSE! Once you

abuse someone, such as the masses of souls enraged

from police overkill and random, chaotic violence at

WTO in 1999, you can talk until you are blue in the

face about freedom of speech and American freedom, but

the eyes of those listening are glazed over with

anger, they are not buying it. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY SAW

POLICE DOING TO UNARMED PEOPLE ON AMERICAN STREETS AND

THEY ALSO KNOW THE POLICE GOT AWAY WITH IT IN THE END

TOO. So THEY DO NOT TRUST American police anymore (if

they ever did). I am not buying this crap about free

speech in America. It is not free speech when you

unleash unaccountable nameless armed troops upon

peaceful protesters in the public square. That is the

EXACT OPPOSITE of what America claims to be FREEDOM.

 

So where is the free speech in America? It is not in

my city. You can speak “freely” as long as you do not

condemn the Bush regime or the Iraq War. Then you may

invoke the wrath of swarms of violent, armed, riot

police, Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the CIA

and FBI, and God knows what in the world they are

doing unaccountable to the world with their hidden

prisons where I am sure everything is on the up and

up, where we are teaching FREEDOM to people who

THREATEN freedom, supposedly. Where are my free speech

rights in America? I do not know. Did I ever have any

free speech rights as an American? Was this one of

those things where they duped us into thinking we had

free speech rights right up until we really needed

them? Or did they never exist and it is one more

bullshit line America feeds the world to justify its

voracious hunger for capitalist extraction and

exploits? Why are so many people AFRAID to speak up in

America today? When I read comments to my articles on

anarchist or radical internet forums, and very few are

using real names and email addresses. Most are saying

what they feel ANONYMOUSLY. OUT OF FEAR. And I use my

name as a silent way to say “I AM NOT AFRAID.” I am

sick of being bullied out of my free speech rights. If

this country is going to spew “free speech rights” as

one of its glories it is killing to bestow upon Iraqi

people, then it better look at the mote in its own eye

(to use its own Christian crap) before it goes

“fixing” others’ problems! Freedom of Speech is DEAD

in America. If you DARE to speak out, with your real

name, you know, as well as I do, you are in danger,

not from “terrorists,” but from the U.S. Government,

the Bush Regime, Tom Ridge, and all of the cast of

clowns with nothing else to do but spy on Americans

PREEMPTIVELY, committing crimes certainly, to “maybe”

stop somebody else from breaking laws besides them!

 

You can decide to be apathetic and complacent and hope

for it all to collapse, Or you can decide to take

responsibility and fight to destroy this death

machine... www.collectivegreenanarchy.org