The Fascist State of America

What Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have done to roll back civil liberties may not at first sight seem so terrible, but what will subsequent Presidents do with these powers to spy, torture, imprison, and murder at will? What further will be lost the next time criminal terrorists strike? President Barack Obama took our hunger for hope and change and gave us a totalitarian police state in what can only be characterized as an epic failure, a grand bait and switch, which is the most recent fascist coup waged upon American liberty.

A truly great nation refuses to falsely trade liberty for security, which assures neither and only enslaves people in pervasive terror.

With torture, spying, murder, and perma-war, all three branches of the U.S. government -- the President, Congress, and courts -- have abused the Constitution and lost all legitimacy. From this point forward, it is only a hop, skip, and jump to an iron-fisted authoritarian dictatorship. The entire American citizenry -- and soon global humanity -- is now assumed to be guilty and data-mined for evidence, on the presumption that everyone is a terrorist until proven innocent.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the American project -- the greatest expansion of liberty and well-being in history (although it always existed upon a shaky economic and ecological basis). Meaningless American political rhetoric's reference to liberty, exceptionalism, and equality are at odds with the reality of spying and murdering in the name of security.

Edward Snowden is an American patriot who has further revealed the extent to which America has become a fascist police state that systematically violates civil liberties to keep us "safe." His observation that "the government has granted itself power it is not entitled [to]" is spot-on. Whistleblowers against militarism, civil liberty abuses, and ecocide are global heroes -- and acting upon their courageous disclosures provides humanity's last chance for a just, free, equitable and sustainable future.

A technological security state has been established that fundamentally threatens civil liberties and environmental sustainability. The protest and regime change necessary to address fossil fuel addiction and abrupt climate change -- and other social changes necessary to bring about a just, equitable, sustainable, and universally free world -- are being violently suppressed by the police state, as social change of any sort that threatens the oppressive and unjust status quo is labeled terrorism.

Who protects us from the government? America has become a two-party fascist state. President Obama's message of progressive hope has collapsed into a totalitarian nightmare -- as the government he leads spies on and murders its own citizens; while torturing, falsely imprisoning, and waging drone based perma-war terrorizing innocents. Critics are harassed by the IRS, as the media are bullied into silence. This failed Presidency has further laid the groundwork for final collapse of U.S. liberty under the guise of security, while ignoring immediate threats posed by abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse.

President Barack Obama's drone perma-war is terrorism, traumatizing innocent populations, murdering thousands to keep the oil flowing and America overconsuming its unfair share of global resources. The absence of major terrorist attacks since 9/11 is due more to the small number and weakness of terrorist wackos than the incautious American military and antidemocratic response.

Now that President Obama has set the precedent of murdering U.S. citizens without trial, what can we expect from successors? Given the steady erosion of civil liberties by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, how long until drones circle U.S. cities murdering citizens on suspicion alone? It's not as unlikely as it once seemed.

Social media and the Internet in general fundamentally threaten the system of coercion and misinformation upon which the ruling oligarchy depend to stifle dissent so that they may continue to plunder the planet. That is why President Obama and many other dictators seek to monitor and control it.

Until now the Chinese government has set the standard for repressive, tyrannical, and ecocidal regimes. Now it is clear that when President Obama and Chinese President Xi next meet, they can compare and share citizen spying and repression tools, ways to avoid cutting emissions to urgently limit abrupt climate change, and how best to control and murder opponents of their police states.

Collapsing ecosystems and the inability of the perpetual growth paradigm to meet ever-growing population's consumption demands are leading to fascism to prop up the system. A surveillance-free Internet is key to humanity's chance to remain free, achieve equity and justice, and avoid global ecosystem collapse. In an age of democratic police states -- where speaking freely and calling for regime change are thought crimes -- it is hard to imagine a way to full spectrum sustainability sufficient to avoid ecosystem collapse.

There is NEVER any justification in a democratic society to spy on, torture, murder, or wage perma-war upon citizens and sovereign nations to keep us "safe." Free speech and privacy are human rights that must be made universal and defended at all cost. Without the liberty required for the people to change governments as necessary, there is no path to avoid global ecosystem collapse.

The United States must repeal the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 rollbacks of civil liberties, dismantle the nascent police state including the NSA, stop spying upon and murdering citizens, end the state of perma-war terrorizing the world while killing innocents, and address abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse, the real and immediate security threat to us all. Otherwise there is going to be a revolution.

America and the world must never give up its hard-fought freedom because of terrorists, inside or outside of government. It is time for the U.S. and the world to recommit to justice, liberty, peace, equity, ecological sustainability, and the rule of law.