With the proposal to expand the Patriot Act looming before Congress, the original promise of America seems more in jeopardy now than ever.  Our freedom has extended itself to other classes and ethnic groups--providing they support consumptive progress and the worldwide exploitation of resources necessary to support a larger corporate fantasy of "free enterprise". That’s a different sort of free enterprise from the mom and pop kind.  Corporate enterprise is free from any ethical constraint simply because it doesn’t have to face neighbors at the grocery store each week.
           The wealthy elite that direct our progress have recognized a crack in their dream and they are rushing to plaster it over.  With 9-1-1, a mindless "patriotism" has revealed the truth of the old Indin saying—“For every pleasure pride invents to pamper vanity—fate allows the marks of shame to follow it by three.”
           The Patriot Act Two will strip Americans of their citizenship if they support any organization, foreign or domestic, listed by the government as a terrorist organization.  I remember when the FBI considered the American Indian Movement a terrorist organization.
           Do we grieve as much for foreign citizens killed at the WTC as we do   Americans?  Do we give a damn about innocent Iraqis?  What’s the difference?   Much of America represents an exclusive club that has never really believed in equality and brotherhood unless it applies to making a buck. Constitutional liberties have always played second fiddle to the protection of a narrow and divisive worldview.
           It is the resources of the land, and a willingness to exploit them (often to their destruction), that has made America powerful. Soon resources will be at a premium and we will discover the true character of the American experiment. Some of us may not survive the discovery.