It is often said that many died in wars to defend American freedom and democracy.

Martin Luther King was not a soldier, but he died while fighting to implement actual freedom in a nation that was at least in part opposed to it, not defending a status quo that was anything but freedom.

Not so long ago, African Americans were segregated, lynched, mutilated in the South. Native Americans were not granted citizenship, while given the "right" to enlist and die in disproportionate numbers in wars waged by this nation. Their religions were suppressed, made illegal.

Native American children were kidnapped by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be sent to far away boarding schools, not to see their parents and families again for as much as a decade, and parents who resisted were sent to Alcatraz and other prisons. I doubt any of these people felt free.

If the original foundation of this nation is freedom, why did the FBI monitor and attempt to crush the civil rights movement, which was nonviolent, and led by a Christian reverend? If the Pope himself had insisted on a need for peace, equality and justice, would he have become an "enemy" of America, targeted for surveillance and censorship, as were some progressive priests and nuns in Central America, who took a stand for the oppressed and against dictators according to their own conscience, and were subsequently chastised by the Pope for having a conscience?

Why have grass root humanitarian movements meant to improve social conditions, expend freedoms and raise moral standards been mostly brutally opposed by the elite and by government (child labor, women's right to vote, unions, labor laws, etc.)? Could it be that freedom and morality are the ideals of ordinary Americans and of people all over the world, but not the desires of a mostly unethical elite that would rather have power and control, including the control of information?

Could it be that the "communist threat" that was used by government to keep everyone – including, absurdly, Native American activists – in check for decades has been replaced by an equally paralyzing and convenient "terrorist threat," that landed on the lap of the neo-cons at a very auspicious time to

begin implementing the foundation of their neo-imperialist "Project for a New American Century"?

Could it be, speaking of the neo-cons, that the extremely lame campaigns by Gore and Kerry against Bush were nothing but charades and meant to fail, because the agenda of global US domination mostly transcends Democrat and Republican ideologies? Are not these ideologies used, in a "good cop-bad cop" manner, to merely give the people the illusion that they are free, have choice, and are represented, which would explain why both parties are equally fiercely opposed to the formation of a viable, independent, grass roots, as-yet uncorrupted third party?

Can it be that government will always find, manufacture, manipulate or support the creation of vast and all encompassing threats to justify curtailing or suppressing freedoms and expend its bureaucracy, so that the oligarchy (international banks, corporations, monopolies), that essentially owns government, retains and expends its control, the multitudes, especially the poor and minorities who are viewed as threats, remain mostly powerless, and domestic and third-world resources continue to be exploitable at very little financial cost and ever greater profits?

Raphael Montoliu

Lakeport

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Published: 20 May 2007