To hear this guy talk, you'd think all the leftists in America were hiding in basements, turning out samizdat on illegal mimeo machines.

I am having a conversation with a liberal American friend about George Bush, Iraq and the construction of a 'national security state' currently underway in the US. My friend is anguished about this. Yet what enrages him more is that, while a large percentage of the US population is vigorously opposed to the Bush regime, no coherent opposition has emerged across the US to the coup d'etat under way in Washington.

A "large percentage?" At last count, it was about thirty percent, tops. So maybe the reason they can't mount a coherent opposition is that most Americans think the anti-Bush Left is as full of shit as a Christmas Goose.

...the mainstream US media seem to be largely in cahoots with Bush, Ashcroft & Co. It is as if the opposition to Bush has been atomised into millions of isolated individuals who are afraid to speak out because they fear being labelled unpatriotic.

Oh, yeah, I have a real hard time finding anti-Bush sentiments in the mainstream media. Are we reading the same papers?

In the current hysterical atmosphere, putting an anti-Bush poster in your window might result in a brick being thrown through it. Alternatively, of course, it might result in a ring at the doorbell and a neighbour saying 'Thank God someone has spoken out against this nonsense'. The point is that you cannot know in advance, and nobody is willing to take the risk.

Behold, the World's Smallest Violin.

Hey, it's the Left that throws bricks. And doesn't this guy live in England? If you can't put an anti-Bush poster in your window in England, what does that say?