Sweet Jesus, I Hate The Democratic Party

A book on Karl Marx sits on one of my bookshelves. Maybe I'm being paranoid but given my bookshelf's proximity to a window if the wrong (or right, depending on your perspective) person should see that, I could be deemed an enemy of America and thus put under surveillance.

Furthermore, I have been known to shop at (gasp) independent bookstores, and a few of them have my name in their email files. Those bookstores sell books on communism, socialism and homosexuality, among other things the Right has deemed anathema to what America's about. That puts me and everyone who's shopped at Village Books under their microscope again.

Does that sound fair to you, Junkie?

 

Why do you DOUBLY hate America, Serve?

 

Please google "Cointelpro" and then imagine everything there times about 20.
Jesus wept.

 

With friends like these,
who the fuck needs Cointelpro.
I'm punch-drunk
on the
sickening cadence
of iron-fists in velvet gloves.
The Cheshire grins.
The crippling Judas kiss
to christen thee a sinking ship
and the purpose of this new counter-intelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize any parades that you can't jump in front of.
Any long years of hard work that ain't yours.
Sometimes I wonder
if you just can't help yourself
Overhead, bloodthirsty vultures circle patiently.
They offer condolences
(and whisper bitter eulogies).
Yes, "comrades" come as thick as thieves.
But you got another think coming.
With friends like these,
who the fuck needs Cointelpro.

 

My new ACLU card came in the mail today. Maybe I should hide it.

 

As for the thread title, me, too.

 

Who needs friends when you have enemies like the Democrats?

 

Junk, I love ya, but that's one hundred percent wrong, and not just because it concludes with "The ends justify the means."

 

Somewhere in the afterlife, Patrick Henry is weeping

 

Without commenting on the relative "rightness" of the vote:

Are there a lot of recent stories about "ordinary" citizens being harrassed and investigated because they read Marx? Or because they shop at a certain bookstore, belong to a certain club, support a certain party? About this government and its people using these powers to pry into the lives of people?

Seriously, I'm asking, because I don't know. Historical accounts of the Red Scare, of course, contain many of these type of stories. But while there is always plenty of uproar over these powers, I haven't seen a lot of stories about how a recent investigation have ruined average citizens' lives. Someone who would only be in the line of fire because they read the wrong books, citing the example from above.

Hell, maybe I just read the wrong publications. I'm sure someone can provide a link or 10.

 

I'm not going to go searching for links, because you can find anecdotal evidence for anything.

I will say this: There are people I used to be close with who have personally been harassed because of their involvement in war protests, especially in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. I received a phone call during that time that was slightly disturbing, asking me about my participation in a war protest in February 2003. When I was in high school, I was called into the principal's office and asked about some books I had checked out -- granted, they had a legit concern (I was doing a project on the history of the A-bomb, and had checked out almost all the books they had on the subject all at once ;D).

So, it happens. It's not a relic of the Red Scare, and it happens to ordinary people. I wouldn't say it "ruins" people's lives. It certainly had little effect on mine.

But it's not right. It's disturbing and, yes, it's a slippery slope.

Maybe Junkie is right -- if you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of. But I don't trust our government to do what's right, even if I'm doing nothing wrong.