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OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 2/7/10

The Silence of the Sheep

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Message WILLIAM FISHER
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Well, doesn't it seem to you that killing American citizens represents a tad more than "interference" in our lives? Surely the killed would think so.

Maybe people just think Barack Obama would never, ever order any American citizen targeted and killed. Even if that were true - and we don't know that - we ought at least to be worried about Obama's successors.

Suppose it's a Dick Nixon? Or a George W. Bush? The powers Obama enjoys today will be used - and likely misused - by others later on. And we can't know what champions of The Imperial Presidency will emerge in our uncertain future.

Some of us thought George Bush should be impeached for eavesdropping on our phone calls and emails without a court order. That violated our Fourth Amendment right to be free from illegal searches. That was about our privacy; this is about our murder!

And collectively we all decide to go to the mall!

Our silence keeps reminding me of Pastor Martin Niemà ¶ller's 1946 speech, in which he famously said,

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a communist;
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 out for me.

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William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and elsewhere for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration and now (more...)
 
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