First: The conduct of the war against the religious fundamentalists who destroyed the World Trade Center and one side of the Pentagon will not be significantly influenced by those of us outside the military-industrial-government establishment. We can continue to hope and pray that the criminals who committed the atrocities of September 11 are made to pay for their crimes and that those directing American military strategy do not cause more problems than they solve.
    But there is a second front to this as yet undeclared war in which the good citizens of our nation should dig in on the front lines or stand firm at the barricades. At least as dangerous as the war against Islamic fanatics is the threat to our liberties from those in control of our government. They have seized this time of crisis to implement proposals they already had in place long before the day of their inauguration. They already have taken the first steps to limit our constitutionally protected freedoms and transform the United States into a national security state. Legislation was quickly enacted to counter the threat of a terrorism so loosely defined that it could be used to silence any American who dissents from policies pursued by the current administration.
   Make no mistake of underestimating the desires of those in all three branches of the federal government who have made clear their intention to create a society far more authoritarian than any suffered during several tortured periods of our nation's history.
    In recent years we have watched Congress pass legislation that enabled corporations to seize control of the major sources of information,

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    Conrad Burns was desperate.     
    Something totally unexpected—something he thought could never happen—was well on its way to happening. After twelve years in the United States Senate, he was a passenger on a gravy train that was heading for a disastrous derailment.
    Early on, he had shanked the kickoff of his 2000 campaign for re-election to a third term. It was bad enough that when he ran for the Senate back in '88, he had promised the voters of Montana—solemnly and repeatedly—that he would serve only two terms. It was a good gimmick and it helped him beat the Democratic incumbent who clearly had worn out his welcome in Montana after too many years toiling in the fetid atmosphere of Washington.
    Conrad had not been good at controlling his notorious temper when reporters began reminding him that he had gone back on his vow to serve only two terms. He got pretty testy and the only answer he would provide was "I changed my mind," as if that was a satisfactory reply to a challenge to his already challenged integrity. Those damn reporters and editors had gotten him into trouble several times through the years by portraying him not as the good ol' Montana boy he liked to pretend he was, but as a teller of coarse jokes who came from Missouri to make disparaging racial observations and let other stuff fall, like dandruff, off the top of his head. What's so bad about calling Arabs "ragheads"? Or telling one of those "n-" jokes at the newspaper in Bozeman?
   Conrad never hid his dislike of newspaper reporters who didn't toss him marshmallows to feed on, like the television guys and gals always

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