habeas corpus - gone

It is amazing to witness a country descend into fascism before our very eyes. The only thing that seems to make such things possible, so that we only see them when we look back fom a vantage point in history, is that human beings seem to have a remarkably short memory. We consistently fail to connect the dots and see the changes as part of a big picture.

Yesterday marked the signing of the Military Commissions Act by George W Bush and the loss of Habeas Corpus. A silent America watched in cowed silence but many, including myself, felt the first cold breath of fascism chilling our bones and the fall landscape. Last night Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, marked the death of habeas corpus with an eloquent speech which spoke to the heart of the matter. As he noted we have suffered similar temporary loses of freedoms, but we have never lost the heart of our liberty - habeas corpus which dates back to the Magna Carta in 1215. - Allen Roland

Olbermann: And lastly, as promised, a special Comment tonight on the signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived. as people in fear.

And now - our rights and our freedoms in peril - we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.