Dear Matilda-

I was a child in the 50's but I remember the McCarthy days. One of my strongest memories was of not being able to watch "Howdy Doody" because my parents had our great big new TV (I think it was a twelve incher in a cabinet as big as a stove) turned on to the Army-McCarthy hearings. It wasn't until years later when I saw a documentary on that (I believe called "Point of Order") that I saw how absolutely fascinating it all was.

The thing is: I never could understand why people could let such manifest stupidity and evil to go so far. Why didn't they stand up? Why were they so frightened of being called a "Communist?" Why didn't they DO something? Why was nothing done until someone of the power of Edward Murrow put him into his sights?

Now I know. And I am frightened. And I don't see a Murrow out there anywhere. (Let alone a Fred Friendly to shield him from the executives with much more to lose than him.)

I am an American. I love my country. I think the Founders were the greatest single group of thinkers to work on a single project as a group in the history of the world. I think the Declaration of Independence/Constitution/Bill of Rights is (singular) the greatest political document in the history of the world.

And I now have a tri-partite government where all three branches think that this document should be disregarded and overridden because they say our "freedoms" are threatened - when they obviously don't understand what the nature of our "real" freedoms are.

I spoke the other day to someone who was "100% behind Bush" as to invading Iraq. "Why?", I said. "Because on 9/11 we lost our freedoms," he answered. "What freedoms?" "The freedom to walk down the street without getting blown up," he answered.

I didn't answer. There was no point. There is no such "freedom" in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is about our freedoms from our Government. Yes, that Government has the responsibility to protect us from both armed hostilities (the Army) and from street crime (the Police) - but those aren't the "freedoms" of the Constitution. And the voting public - the only part that counts in terms of changing anything don't want to know that; and those people don't want to hear that.

That's my point: they don't want to hear that. They have no interest in listening.

And those people are on the verge of allowing all the terrors of McCarthyism to come back. And most of them would have no idea whatsoever I was talking about if I said "McCarthyism", so it holds no power.

So much has been lost and I don't know if it can be recovered. It's like taxes: cutting them is easy, restoring them if a major mistake has happened (as it has) is not. Even if that would benefit the majority of the electorate!

Breaking up the Homeland Security Department will not be easy. Reversing judicial decisions now made will not be easy. (Such as the one that just happened denying the right of an American citizen to an attorney because the government labeled him an enemy combatant without an open hearing as to whether the charges were true.)

So perhaps you are thinking of responding that I have some good comments to make and why don't I write a letter or Op-Ed piece for my local paper? (It's not a small one - it's the LA Times!)

Because to do that I would have to say that the Bush administration is both EVIL and UN-AMERICAN. EVIL and UN-AMERICAN at so many levels. Our foreign policy is causing many smaller countries to create a nuclear capability that didn't exist before. We have an Attorney-General who looked around to find a state that would execute the young sniper not yet 18 - even though he is not considered competent generally to vote or drink. I do not want to continue; I might not be able to stop.

My McCarthy era demons rise up - for I am scared of what might happen if I called the Bush Administration EVIL and UN-AMERICAN in public - to me, to my family, to my life in general. I don't feel I am paranoid. This is an administration that actually proposed using mailmen and utility workers as to spy for the government on American citizens in their homes.

Tell me Matilda, what can I do? The "protests" are so weak, so meaningless. Write your Congressmen? You mean the ones that gave the President total freedom in terms of starting a war on Iraq because too few can remember that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a sham - and they were afraid of losing a few votes if they spoke up? Those congressmen? The ones who voted for a bill that had a clause put in it that was a payback to the drug industry that protected them from a pending lawsuit involving the side effects of a normal childhood vaccine and whether they contributed to autism? Those congressmen? The ones that were just put in power by a majority of the American people in the last election? Those?

I write to you because I don't know what else to do - and I thought you might be willing to listen. Can you tell me not to be frightened? That I should only be concerned and that the nation will start realizing what is happening before it goes to far that it can't be undone.

Tell me there is hope.

An anecdote (true story): A young reporter was interviewing a survivor of the Holocaust. The interview took place in Miami on a park bench looking out over the Atlantic on a clear, warm day. Then the old man said "You know, it was better in Auschwitz than here!"

Shocked the young man said "How can you say such a thing? It's so beautiful here. It must have been horrible in the camps!"

"Yes," came the reply, "here every day is totally comfortable. In the camps we had hope."

P.S. I think it was very sweet of you to put a picture of your daughter on your home page.