complex emotional state with
apprehension or dread
as its most prominent component.
A Dictionary of Psychology - James Drever
Penguin Books - 1952
Years ago a very wise friend said, "It is time to see the psychiatrist when you start having nightmares". She was going through an anxious time and the nightmares were her warning signs that she needed to look, with the help of a professional, into whatever the outward situation was that was causing her to have these nightmares.
Well ... in this Bush dominated world with anxiety about one's safety and the direction of our country on the rise, if my friend was right, it is time to start seeing the psychiatrist.
Anxiety is at an all time high, while a sense of security and stability are on the decline, and symptoms from nightmares, to anger, to irritability and violence are ever so much on the increase.
For, ... as far as freedom goes, it is becoming clearer and clearer that freedom is fast becoming a myth here in the United States, that repression is on the rise and that people who speak out against Bush or his policies, everyday ordinary Americans who do so, put themselves at risk of having repressive, or repressively legal measures taken against them by Bush, by Bush apologists and alter egos, and by his representatives of the Bush Police State, including but not limited to being tasered, incarceration, intimidation, disappearance, and ... more.
Bush has, aided by the events of 9/11, followed by the creation of the Patriot Act and by the recent Detainee Bill passed by the give-Bush-all-he-wants Congress, now waiting snuggly on his desk for his signature, shred the Constitution and, along with this planned shredding, through said detainee bill, of one of the most basic underpinning of an individual's rights, the writ of "habeas corpus",
Lat. "you have the body" Prisoners often seek release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment. The petition must show that the court ordering the detention or imprisonment made a legal or factual error. Habeas corpus petitions are usually filed by persons serving prison sentences. In family law, a parent who has been denied custody of his child by a trial court may file a habeas corpus petition. Also, a party may file a habeas corpus petition if a judge declares her in contempt of court and jails or threatens to jail her.
Bush gives himself absolute power over whomsoever he wants to detain, incarcerate, or disappear, for whatever reason Bush decides is an offense against him, his power grab, or against his illegal and dishonest seizure of the presidency of the United States...moving all of us, in this way, closer to a full fledged dictatorship in a soon to become land of desaparecidos.
With that turpitude underlying the reality of the Bush residency in the White House, I woke up two nights ago from a nightmare in which the fractions, divisions, polarizations and fear-planting of the Bush White House became the main players, roaming in my mind, through a bottlenecked city which had become a huge airport, an escapeway, where people were trying to "get out" from under the Bush chains of repression by leaving the landscape.
With people sitting everywhere on park benches and sidewalks waiting for their exit ticket to be called, the smell of desertion and desolation hung heavy in the air.
A man who, from his attire, seemed to be an airline pilot, was training others on how to conduct surveillance by using a lap top computer which he'd taken from one of the surveillance offices and installed right there on the street. People were being surveilled from places where they least expected to, by people whom they least expected.
Sensing the air of abnormality that floated around them, those seated in benches and along the sidewalks waiting for their flight out of the city to be called, were afraid and fearful to talk to each other, suspicious of one another; they sat in silence, not looking directly at the person sitting next to them but peering out of the corner of their eyes to the person sitting next to them, fearful, afraid, powerless...
I woke up in a sweat.
In reality, we have not gotten to that extreme landscape of my nightmare yet. But Bush is taking us there fast. People in the real world are becoming afraid to speak against Bush and his regime. They are beginning to clam up.
People are beginning to get the message that speaking out against Bush can bring them harm.
Jeff Cohen stated in Amy Goodman's Democracy Now program of 10/11/06 that the progressive media is, "on guard."
The progressive media is vigilant. Vigilance is part of a paranoid state. It is part of a state of apprehension, real or imagined that, "something can happen to me, although I don't know what, or for what reason, but something can and I have to be vigilant."
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