Who would I be talking about if I spoke of a certain political leader who mastered propaganda in order to dupe his own government and people of his country, who used the mechanism of democratic governance to actively destroy it by centralizing more and more power in his hands, who invoking a hidden Enemy in order to achieve his ends, and who used a clandestine organization to surveil, abduct, interrogate, and in terrorize not only these alleged hidden enemies but also citizens of his own country?

Stalin?

Hitler?


This, two days ago from the New York Times:

President Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers, using his veto to shut down a Congressional effort to limit the Central Intelligence's latitude to subject terrorism suspects to harsh interrogation techniques.

Add in a bit of Iraq WMD's, PATRIOT ACT, FISA modifications and more, and you've got one hell of a case for the slow progression towards tyranny. I remember being told once that if you put a frog in water and slowly turn the heat up, it won't attempt an escape, because the change happens so slowly it doesn't notice what's happening. It's not true of frogs, but the anecdote still has something to say to us. It starts by targeting people radically "other." Then people a little less radically "other". Then political dissidents become "enemy combatants"… You see where this heads if the logic is played out? It started with the tazing of Andrew Meyer, who was tazered for just asking Al Gore some questions.