I’ll admit it. I’m struggling. It’s taking an enormous amount of effort just trying to keep up with the mindlessness going on in this country right now.
   As if the Bush administration’s ‘blitzkrieg’ assault on the treasury, the environment, and the Bill Of Rights wasn’t enough, I read today where many of the families that lost loved ones in the 911 attack are upset that the $1.65 million (the average payout) they are due to receive from the Federal Government is no where near what they need to compensate for their pain and suffering. And this is in addition to the millions of dollars of charitable donations already being distributed. 
   Can someone tell me exactly when it became a right in this country to expect or demand compensation from the government for pain and suffering? Hundreds of thousands of families face tragic loses every year. Are they all entitled to have their pain alleviated by a few million taxpayer bucks? Have we gone mad? Just how long is this stupefying daze we’ve collectively put ourselves in going to last anyway? Until the “war” on ‘terra’ and ‘evildoers’ is over? In other words - forever? That is one consequence of declaring war on a noun, as Molly Ivins recently put it.
   Mindlessness. Dumbing down. That’s what they want, you know. And why? Because the ‘Boy King’ and the Republican Corporation know that a thinking, well informed citizenry is simply bad for business. If they can keep our attention focused on flag waving, God Bless America, and Geraldo’s ‘hunt for Osama’, they can then freely go about the business of stuffing billions of dollars into the pockets of wealthy campaign donors; eliminating environmental safeguards on behalf of polluting industries, who also happen to be generous campaign donors; and working to dismantle the separation of church and state on behalf of the religious right - campaign donors who also supply the necessary votes to maintain the GOP hold on power. It really is a slick, well thought out system. But it depends upon mass diversion; on thoughtlessness; on a sheep-like admiration of the “Emperor’s new clothes”. 
   Ever wonder why the ’Emperor’ and the Republican Corporation incessantly push religion the way they do? Throughout history tyrants, kings, and rulers have always found that a communal religious structure is the most effective way to manipulate the masses and to keep them in line; Afghanistan being a recent example.
   I am absolutely certain, as certain as I can be, that the Republican Corporation and those who control George W. could care less about my, or anyone else’s, eternal soul. What they care about, what they need to pull off their scam, is group mentality and obedience. And they realize this can best be achieved by abandoning our separation of church and state, and instilling a more theocratic form of rule.
   Take for example a comment George W. made recently at a Catholic School addressing the difference between secular and private schools and the need for private school vouchers: "…such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith…we need believing people."
   Now I’m sure many of you concur with this sentiment, and likely disagree with my entire hypothesis here. After all, what could possibly be wrong with striving to fund religious instruction for children and expressing our country’s need for “believing people”?
   Well, I’ll tell you what might be wrong with it. The person that expressed this sentiment was not really George W. It was another extremely popular, Bible believing leader who felt he was “doing the Lord’s work”. His name was Adolf Hitler, and the comment was from a speech he gave in 1933. That, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with that. Hitler and the Nazi party understood perfectly the value of religious indoctrination of the youth, consequently making it a top priority. Think about that the next time you hear the right wingers hollering for the Ten Commandments and organized prayer in the public schools, and taxpayer funded vouchers. It’s a page taken right out of the “Authoritarian Guide To Controlling The Masses” handbook.
   Once again, I beseech you - as I have in the past - don’t be sucked in by this mind numbing propaganda machine. It’s not at all a stretch, considering the way this Republican juggernaut is rolling right now, to be seriously concerned that we’re headed in an irreversible (at least in the short term) totalitarian direction. Give these people just a little more power; let yourself become just a tad more indifferent, and you might just wake up one day soon to an Americanized version of fascism. And you won’t even know what happened.
 

   “As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there’s a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglass