Is Tweeting Now a Felony Under Federal Law?

John W. Whitehead November 18th, 2009

Say you want a revolution.

We better get on right away.

Well you get on your feet

And out on the street.

–John Lennon, "Power to the People"

The ominous rise of the surveillance state continues unabated. With each passing day, hope fades that the Obama administration will diverge from George W. Bush's erection of a police state.

The government's treatment of Elliot Madison is a case in point. Madison, a 41-year-old self-styled anarchist and social worke … (Read More)

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Loving Big Brother: The Future Is Now

John W. Whitehead October 5th, 2009

"He loved Big Brother."–George Orwell, 1984

1984 portrays a global society of total control in which people are not supposed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom. Snitches and surveillance cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of such thought crimes. The government, or "Party," is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: … (Read More)

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Freedom Fading - John W. Whitehead on SBE

Erik Guzman July 3rd, 2009

If it's not enough of a 4th of July bummer that the economy is in the toilet, join John Whitehead on this edition of Steve Brown Etc. to hear about the shocking ways that the freedoms we're celebrating are going up in smoke.

(If you're on the front page of the site, click "Read More" to see player options.)

If your city canceled their 4th of July celebration because of budget cuts, here's a recipe for fireworks. Combine one part federal hate crimes law and two pa … (Read More)

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Nat Hentoff Has Never Lost His Sense of Rage

John W. Whitehead June 9th, 2009

My lives as a radical (according to the FBI): an "enslaver of women" (according to pro-choicers); a suspiciously unpredictable civil-libertarian (according to the ACLU); a dangerous defender of alleged pornography (according to my friend Catherine MacKinnon); an irrelevant, anachronistic integrationist (according to assorted black nationalists); and, as an editor at the Washington Post once said, not unkindly–"a general pain in the…"–Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff … (Read More)

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Angry Conversations with God - Susan Isaacs on SBE

Erik Guzman May 22nd, 2009

After forty years of being a good Christian girl, Susan Isaacs' life fell apart. Her dad died, her mom had a stroke, her career tanked and then her boyfriend of three years left her with no house and no husband…all simultaneously.

What's a girl to do? She had a nervous breakdown, took God to couples counseling, gave Him a piece of her mind and wrote Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir.

Join Susan on this week's Steve Brown Etc. as we t … (Read More)

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We Are the Heirs of the First Revolution

John W. Whitehead November 5th, 2008

"These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."–Thomas Paine

The year was 1961. I was fourteen years old, the only child of blue-collar workers living in Peoria … (Read More)

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