It's been five years since 9/11, which seems unreal to me. Five years since our Criminal in Chief declared that Osama was "wanted dead or alive." Five years later, Bush has abandoned any pretense of searching for bin Laden, is busy calling anyone who dissents with his imperial war for oil in Iraq a traitor and a coward, and has repeatedly used the deaths of 3,000 people - people who died five years ago today - as an excuse to strip us of our liberties and bombard us into submission with the truncheon of fear.

I am sick and tired of these third-rate fascists trying to exploit a national tragedy to intimidate and frighten people into supporting the destruction of our freedoms. In these five years since that horrible day, the Republican party has not missed a single chance to tie 9/11 to their bloodthirsty lust for unrestrained power. The death and tragedy of 9/11 has certainly been a great boon to the Bush cabal, so much so that it really makes you wonder whether they're telling the truth about it at all. They certainly had no compunctions in lying about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent links to al-Qaeda to justify their illegal war of aggression in Iraq; how certain can we be that they're telling the truth about anything anymore?

Five years ago, a terrible tragedy took the lives of 3,000 innocent people, and in our fear and despair and rage we ceded total control of our mind, our will, our conscience to an aspiring tyrant who by his every action spits on what we cherish as Americans. Fear is a terrible thing; it corrupts our reason and common sense and causes us to do things we would never consider under normal circumstances. As Americans, we generally love to pat ourselves on the back for our strident dedication to freedom and individual liberties, yet under Bush we have ceded away more personal liberty and privacy than ever. Can you imagine how Republicans would have reacted had Clinton admitted to authorizing a comprehensive wiretap of Americans' phone lines? The outrage would have been audible from the newly demoted Pluto. And with good reason - some things are just above politics. The Bill of Rights and the freedom they give the citizens from their government is a cornerstone, a foundation of our free society. Yet these same Republicans now justify the stripping away of the liberties they claim to be waging a war to protect, all in the name of keeping us "safe" from the terror that only they can protect us from. Make us remember WHY WE NEED THEM!

So if you are tired of living in fear, tired of being told that to question is unpatriotic, tired of George Bush and Dick Cheney abusing the memories of those 3,000 to advance their repressive agenda, then take a moment today to remember the 11th of September. Remember the day five years ago when so much innocent blood was spilled by a dark and shadowy aggressor whose crimes have yet to be punished. Remember, too, the second tragedy that accompanied - the slow suffocation of our liberties, freely given away by we the people in a moment of panic and fear.

Remember these twin crimes against the American people, so that never again will we forget their lessons.