Presumably everyone here is either posting articles/diaries or is reading here because we all have one thing in common: We are concerned and we want to find out the real news which is no longer offered us by the mainstream "news" propaganda/spin. (Unless, of course, other readers are government spies. But let's not "go there").

 Everywhere I read on Progressive websites, in e-mail action alerts from progressive organizations, there is one fundamental gap: Civil liberties.
It's only common sense: Once our free speech is lost, we won't even be talking about global warming, the economy, et al.

Those of us who think we are NOT on the brink of losing our free speech are very, very wrong.

Ignorance is bliss: It's fun to live in the land of emotional lightness. But that Unbearable Lightness of Being will fast convert to Unbearable Heaviness of Being when all is lost.

Having lived next door to the Iron Curtain, having served on my local ACLU Chapter Board, and having read the ACLU's website for the past seven years, I can tell you with certainty that the loss of our free speech is two inches away. And only a few of us know it.

Please go to the ACLU's website and read the latest news. Read about post-911 legislation: You will be amazed at how Democracy Now's information becomes confirmation once you know the specific details of post-911 laws. Because all that is being done and reported begins to make sense, based on those (unconstitutional) "laws". You can check out the Congressional voting scorecard and help to unseat those who voted in a direction you know is wrong, by writing letters to the editor and getting the news on the public radar. You can see declassified FBI documents of "International Terrorism Matters" investigations, which really are targeting religious groups for organizing anti-war rallies. See which cross-sectors of society are being queried as terrorists: It ain't no terrorists at all. It IS activists, religious and peace groups.

Basically anybody who poses a threat to the Bush Administration's money-making machine (oil for profit, war contracts without end, etc) is officially branded a "terrorist" individual or entity, by the Administration itself, and is investigated as a "terrorist". And in my opinion, the post-911 legislation is designed to protect the Administration's agenda.

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE BRING THIS REALITY TO THE MAINSTREAM READERS. BECAUSE IF WE DON'T, NOBODY WILL DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

If editors won't write articles about it (editors too, FYI, are being jailed for their reports: See the ACLU's Free Speech Report done in September of '07) then what we CAN do is to write letters to the editor, ourselves. Editors ARE, in my experience, inclined to print such letters because it is not they, themselves, who are held responsible for them.

Please help to get civil liberties on the public radar. Because we must.

And please help to motivate the discouraged masses with hope. People will do nothing when they are depressed and think that their voice will make not one iota of difference. It's very important to rebut that assumption and to offer proactive ideas which really work.

Thank you all for your help.