The following is from my diary of Sept 29 2009;

Why Sibel Edmonds Frightens Us

The story that Sibel Edmonds is telling presents great challenges.

The issues Sibel Edmonds brings to light threaten to distract us from that current legislative battle, but they also threaten to plunge us into despair by extinguishing our collective hopes and leave only the stark realization that our broken and corrupted government has passed well beyond the point where we can reasonably expect that our efforts, no matter how heroic, or how well coordinated, can ever be effective enough to ransom it from the clutches of the ‘false and designing men’ that Samuel Adams warned us about.

Sibel Edmonds story frightens us.

Her story threatens our resolve by confirming our worst fear, the fear that it might be too late.

In the back of our minds we’ve all made the calculation that if what Sibel Edmonds is telling us is true, our country is in a lot more trouble than we’ve been willing to face, and the amount of work we will have to do to fix it is almost unimaginable.

The legislative battle I made reference to was Health Care Reform.

Yesterday at the FDL Book Salon, Sibel Edmonds added a small twist to that perspective that only deepens the fear;

As a child I was moved from one country to another, and to another, to escape tyranny/police state practices. I never thought I’d be going through that again. You know, government/media I can take on and continue to fight, but public apathy, the apathy of the majority, I cannot. I am not a big fan of Ms. Clinton, but one line I must repeat: it takes an entire village. The executive, the congress, courts, and the media … sure, but most importantly, it is the people-the majority that becomes so accustumed and desensitized ….

And;

Of the four branches (yes, I consider media to be the fourth, media plays the most important role. In fact, it makes retaliation, lack of acountability, possible. It allows congress to dodge responsibility (as it has done for the last 11 years). It allows the court to remain ‘dependent.’ It brings about public apathy. And without public outrage, without congress having to look over their shoulder, the governments become tyrannies-unaccountable-police state.

In the three years since I posted that diary, the suspicion that it may be too late has only deepened, as the evidence continues to mount.

Then Phoenix Woman made a comment the other day (@71) that very much disturbed what’s left of my peace of mind;

If there is a successful armed revolt in the US, it will result in an authoritarian régime taking over the country and making the US even more racist, ignorant and stupid than it already is.

I realized she was right, and thinking it over for the last few days has done nothing to temper the impact of that observation.

The Republican wing of our ruling uni-party has been promising their base a chance to re-fight the Civil War for some fifty years now, and I’ve come to believe they see no reason not to deliver on that promise.

Sibel Edmonds says she’s thinking of living somewhere else.

It’s terribly sad, but that sounds like a very sensible idea.