Do you remember why we fought the "Cold War"?


President Bush and his administration’s unprecedented radical theories of presidential power, is threatening to alter our system of government and more than that, our national character.

My college and FBI roommate, noted former CIA Agent, Jim Marcinkowski and I recently discussed our 60+ years of public service, being sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and the Cold War.  Consider what's going on in our country and government today and consider these reasons we fought the cold war with the Soviet Union;


  • Their government was always right and never apologized for anything; 

  • Any dissent was suppressed, ridiculed, banned or worse; 

  • Secret prisons were denied and never acknowledged or spoken about; 

  • The torture of captives (in Lubyanka) was condoned; 

  • State incarceration was not subject to checks and balances of a legal system 

  • Economic plans, like for oil, were established/determined in closed sessions between politicos, commissars and production managers, far outside public view, and where the government claimed privilege in doing so; 

  • Government agents had access to your medical records, library records, your telephone records, etc.; 

  • A place where judicial power and judicial review were proclaimed concepts, but simply ignored in application; 

  • Where criminal records of young adults were closed to all but the military; 

  • Where a constitution was a mere facade and ignored by state actors; 

  • Any dissent, debate and protest were deemed unpatriotic 

  • The public media was bought and paid for and provided by the state; 

  • The military clandestinely and shamelessly influenced the national media and public opinion; 

  • A place where wrong was declared right; 

  • Where tapping a phone line was like tapping a pencil; 

  • Where lying was considered a patriotic skill; 

  • The extraction of natural resources was paramount to any concern for the environment and the impact on the health of its people; 

  • Where the use of “state secrets” (those things embarrassing to the government) were confused with legitimate issues of “national security”; 

  • Where legitimate secrecy, was subject to political use and abuse; 

  • Where “legislators” were mere mouthpieces for and rubber stamps of whoever was in power; 

  • Where you lived and died with the permission of the government; 

  • A place where foreign policy was more important than domestic concerns; 

  • Where the best medical care was reserved for the influential; 

  • Where wealth was concentrated in the top 5%; 

  • A place where there is no middle class - just a small economic and political elite, and the working poor; 



Something to think about Americans.