Essays and Stories: 1978-2022
Political rights are so easily taken for granted – until they’re threatened or curtailed by repressive laws and covert crimes. In the United States, they are usually most vulnerable when people are anxious about some imagined threat. After World War II, for instance, dissent became risky as relations with Russia hardened into the paranoia of Cold War I. Hysteria about subversion led quickly to state and congressional investigations of “Un-American activities.” In 1951, a Supreme Court decision led to the imprisonment of eleven Communist leaders. It wasn’t for any overt acts threatening national security, but instead just for trying to organize a political party and teach Marxism.
Today the threats to liberty are no less imminent.
Freedom on the Rocks
Repressing Un-American Activities
Blowback: When Secret Plans Go Bad
Invisible War: William Pierce and MKULTRA
Part 6: The Doctor from Mk-Ultra
Scare Tactics: The Berster Case
Fire Sale Earth
Truth Decay
How Perception Management Wrecked Reality
(or, Rendezvous with Uncertainty)