“Remember, Remember the 2nd of November.”

As I sit here on the bus listening to one of my favorite artist “VS,” I look around at the other riders wondering, "Do they know what their Republic is currently mired in? Do they even care?"

The major character in one of my favorite movies of all-time "V for Vendetta" blamed the citizens in England for allowing the country to fall under a totalitarian government because the citizens willingly surrendered their freedoms of speech, religion, and the press so they would be protected by the government against liberals, Jews, Islam, gays, lesbians and terrorists. It appears when cast on the wall of life, fiction and reality has become one.

I watch as citizens first began protesting having a community center built two and half blocks from Ground Zero, which is their right to "demonizing" Islam and those that practice it which is racist, prejudice, and xenophobic. I also hear politicians campaigning for placing poor people in prison buildings for being poor and unhygienic, politicians who want to repeal the 17th Amendment and oil companies like Chevron attempting to infringe upon journalists 1st Amendment Rights.

As the president begins the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, there are individuals in our government--"Bastards of War" if you will--that would rather deploy them to Iran and North Korea because they complete the tri-fecta of George W. Bush’s cartoonish theme of the “Axis of Evil.”

The Declaration of Independence and the Constititution protects everyone except illegal immigrants. If we’re not careful some will attempt to re-write them to protect everyone except Asians, Latinos, African Americans, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, the sick, and impoverished. When this occurs, I should relocate to North Korea where they make no pretense of loving liberty, and they can be taken literarily and without the aura of hypocrisy.

As I sit here on the bus listening to one of my favorite artist and as I look around at the other riders, I wonder, "Do they know what their Republic is currently mired in? Do they even care?"



Anthony P. Johnson

“In A Whisper.”

It is important to remember that democracy is more fragile than communism, socialism, oligarchy or a totalitarian government because democracy can dissipate in a whisper when those at the seat of its government are inept and corrupt. Democracy will become extinct if we continue to misinterpret among the citizens derision, hate and destruction for freedom of speech and of religion.


Anthony P. Johnson



* This article appears in the August 24, 2010 Metro Newspaper.