10/12/06 Politicians Are Using Fear Of Terrorism To Turn U.s. Into Authoritarian State

Dear Editor: In 1955-56 I was a student at the University of Munich. Parts of Munich were still in rubble: the opera house, the underground, etc. I would ask folks around the university about living in an authoritarian police state and how that could happen in an enlightened German culture.

The common answer was that Germany needed to regain its pride after the war and that Bolshevik and other factions were tearing up the country. National Socialism seemed benign at first, but by 1935 or so it was too late. The apparatus of the state had been taken over.

I believe that this is happening today in the United States. McCarthyism was an effort to use the fear of communism to instill a sense of U.S. exceptionalism in the country and to turn the republic into an authoritarian state. The fear of the other, now called terrorism, is being used to scare enough people so that politicians of both parties are willing to use the techniques of the police state to "protect" democracy.

Profiling of illegal immigrants, eavesdropping on our privacy, invading our libraries, rendering and torturing, pre-emptively attacking other countries, rejecting international law and treaties, enlarging the concentration camp in Guantanamo, and preaching endlessly about "homeland" security -- electoral politics is being used to divide the country into "us and them," patriots and those who support the terrorists.

I have notified my congresspeople that I am withholding tax payments as a beginning effort, a way to remind myself that my conscience is the most important thing in my life. I cannot change the country, but I must change myself. I hope your paper will urge your readers to do what they can to protect themselves from what is happening.