World War III: The war on democracy and civil rights

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Most material in this category is organized under geographic categories.

‘Anti-Terrorist’ Measures Aimed At Working Class
By James Harris and Laura Garza, Socialist Workers Party candidates for U.S. president and vice-president, The Militant, 19 August 1996. Capitalizing on the explosion of TWA flight 800 and the pipe bomb in Atlanta, the Clinton administration aims to curtail democratic rights, targeting immigrant workers, and increased pressure against countries such as Cuba and Iran.
National Terrorism Commission Report Seriously Threatens Civil Liberties
ADC Press Release, 4 June 2000. Recommendations in the report by the National Commission on Terrorism pose a serious threat to civil liberties, charged the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). The report calls for abolishing restrictions on CIA activity, using the Army for domestic disaster management in the event of a major terrorist attack, etc.
Remember the People
By Jim Cullen, editorial, Progressive Populist, 15 November 2001. Sept. 11 brought a great city, a nation and the civilized world together. We were all together all too briefly. Then the opportunists struck to use it to promote Fast Track, trade liberalization, tax breaks for the wealthy, and an attack on Afghanistan.
Rule of Force v. Rule of Law: The Global Lock-down on Civil Liberties
By Malcolm Rogge, Canadian Dimension, December 2001. Governments around the world are passing anti-terrorism laws at breakneck speed, with virtually no public debate. By circumventing civil rights in the name of ‘security’, governments on all continents are, in effect, ‘locking down’ against forceful political, religious and ideologically motivated protest.
EU-Presidency: Anti-globalisation Activists are Terrorists
By Jelle van Buuren, Telopolis, 8 February 2002. Spain wants network of intelligence liaisons in EU Member States to exchange information on political activists. EU had held that the distinction between political activists and terrorists would not be blurred. The current EU-Presidency, however show different..
Euro law wrongly defines terrorism
By John Brown, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2002. The new European Union arrest warrant is a worrying part of the West's misguided attempt, in the name of anti-terrorism, to criminalise all forms of political, economic and social protest against any established order.
Unlimited Presidential Powers
Opinion, The New York Times, 8 August 2002. The Justice Department all but told a federal judge this week to take his legitimate concerns about civil liberties and stuff them in the garbage pail. The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. It took this misguided position to a ludicrous extreme on Tuesday, insisting that the federal courts could not review its determinations.
Marines losing the battle for hearts and minds
By James Meek, The Guardian, Tuesday 25 March 2003. a sense of bitterness, germinated from blood spilled and humiliations endured, begins to grow in the hearts of the Iraqi people under US occupation. US forces got rid of Saddam Hussein, but also attacked his Baghdad and killed civilians. The reliance on cluster bombs rather than missiles reveals the real target.
Statement in Support of CACPR Boycott
Black Radical Congress National Council Meeting, 29 March 2003, St. Louis MO. The police are in our communities to intimidate, confine, and control. They treat people in our communities with racism, suspicion, and disrespect, and they place little or no value on our lives and safety.
The real war—On American democracy
By Thom Hartmann, 20 April 2003. In the midst of news of foreign wars, Americans are beginning to wake up to the real war being waged here at home. It is, however, a confused awakening. For example, Americans wonder why the Bush administration seems so intent on crippling local, state, and federal governments by starving them of funds and creating huge federal debt that our children will have to repay.
Inverted Totalitarianism
By Sheldon Wolin, The Nation, 19 May 2003. We may have invaded Iraq to bring in democracy and bring down a totalitarian regime, but in the process our own system may be moving closer to the latter and further weakening the former. The change has been intimated by the sudden popularity of two political terms rarely applied earlier to the American political system: “Empire” and “superpower”.