History Repeats Itself

I encourage everyone to go out and rent the movie Good Night and Good Luck. It is amazing. Definitely not in my usual style of "light and fluffy." But it is perfect given today's political climate.

Many lines in the movie hit me and I had to remind myself that it was talking about the past.

For example:

We proclaim ourselves,
indeed as we are...
the defenders of freedom wherever
it continues to exist in the world...
...but we cannot defend freedom abroad
by deserting it at home.

and

The American people realize
that this cannot be made a fight
between America's
two great political parties.

If this fight against Communism
is made a fight against America's
two great political parties
the American people know that one
of those parties will be destroyed...
and the Republic can't endure
very long as a one-party system.

Notice that we could replace the world communism with terrorism and it still works. I feel that things are reverting back to the way the were in the period addressed by the film, and not only that but becoming more extreme. There are people who are being accused of being terrorists and whose rights are being taken away, and this time they're being sent to prison without due process (ok, so maybe back then there was only the appearance of due process). There is a war being fought where evidence for it never existed. More and more social programs that Americans pay for with their tax dollars are being stripped away to pay for it. And finally, each of our lives is now monitored (that is, if you have Verizon, Bellsouth or AT&T) without warrant, and, in my opinion, is a waste of resources and will do no good.

What more will happen before people will stand up? It's been shown that history will repeat itself until the lesson is learned. Why haven't the lessons been learned? Are they even remembered at this point?

I guess this is what we get for electing a President who got a C in history.

Not that I had anything to do with that.