Losing Freedom

Reading this rather alarmist article by Naomi Wolfe reminds me of something my friend M said a while ago. She believes that there a reason why Americans have been given access to cheap high-calorie junk food, made addicted to cheap gas (until recently at least) , turned dependent on far too many prescription medicines and told to be very afraid of the bad guys out there who would love nothing more than to destroy their way of life.

She believes it is all part of a plot to keep the little people in line because they are easier to control and manipulate when they are are badly frightened and will reflexively seek comfort in junk food. M is one of the several older Americans I know who are deeply concerned about what the future holds for them and would be in complete agreement with Wolfe :

As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are "at war" in a "long war" - a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president - without US citizens realising it yet - the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.