During the 50s and 60s right wing demagogues would denounce anyone who questioned foreign policy abuses as "soft on communism". Today the very same type of demagogues will denounce anyone questioning our "war on drugs" as being soft on drugs. Surprisingly this accusation wasn't laid on a presidential nominee for the FBI, the attorney general's office or anyone who has to enforce these idiotic policies. It wasn't even laid on a Surgeon General nominee or someone affiliated with health care. No, it was used to deny a hearing on an ambassadorial nominee! It only sounds strange if you are not aware of our longstanding domestic and foreign policy assault on basic human freedoms which includes citizen disempowerment and expansion of governmental power on a global scale.

If you are gullible enough to believe what you glean from the extremely biased and unreliable media sources -especially heavily sponsored talk radio and political commentary shows - expansion of governmental power is strictly a liberal domain. However, the reality is quite different - despite the fact that Democratic demagogues have been defined as "mainstream" when they jump on the authoritarian, "nanny state" bandwagon. Ever since the end of the 2nd world war, the Cold War was used as a subterfuge for support ofauthoritarianism on a global scale. The fact that it facilitated exploitation of natural and human resources was more than coincidental. The very same apparatus that overthrew democratically elected governments and undermined democracy movements under the guise of "fighting communism" are doing the very same things under the guise of "fighting drugs". We are providing the very same weaponry, technically assistance and even troop deployments for the very same type of autocrats as before. Towards the end of the Cold War people caught on to the atrocities and public support waned; policy didn't really change but the bogeymen did. How long will it take the public to catch on to the atrocities in this new inane war?

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