Is America Nearing a Dictatorship?

You can feel the pendulum swing to the left. As with any society, the morals, values and political thought go from right to left with stunning regularity. The keywords that people like to use, "blow-back", "backlash" and the like, all cover this phenomenon. The world has gone through this periodically in its history.

Governments that swing too far to the left or right, invariably move back to the center. Sometimes, as in the case of Germany, the wild excesses of the 1920's and early thirty's left people longing for "traditional" values, but the blow-back of the move to the left, brought in a tyrannical right wing dictatorship that had to be removed by war.

What I see in this country is the same in reverse. Our experiment with right-wing leadership has caused many Americans to reconsider their values and their political stance. While many Americans wanted a strong, moral national government, they were not prepared for what was to come as Bush and Cheney delivered to the American people an almost fascist type of government that took the nation to wars of conquest and abrogated the populations civil rights and their protections under the United States Constitution. We now are faced with a government that the people no longer want, and no longer trust, with powers that have not been seen since our own Civil War.

Now, the pendulum is swinging left. Most Americans are disenchanted and more than that, they are fearful of what this government will do next. We are effectively shielded from information that historically came from the press, as it has also caved-in to the far right in its reporting. The Internet is the only viable way to get uncensored information about what is really taking place. Americans are now getting their news and information over the web.

Insofar as information is still coming to Americans, we are still privy to what our government is doing in our name. Most Americans abhor this war in Iraq and don't want a replay in Iran. Most Americans want us to leave the area, and the protests are growing larger with the passing of time.