Subj:    op-ed submission: Flashpoint-Militias and Corporate Media
Date:    96-04-23 19:53:55 EDT
From:    EdgarSuter
To:      editor@usatoday.com

Editor
USA Today

Opinion rebutting "Most extreme splinters going underground" by Mark Potok,
4/17/96, page 3A

Flashpoint - Militias and Corporate Media
by  Edgar A. Suter MD, National Chair, Doctors for Integrity in Policy
Research Inc.

Though it has been profitable for corporate media, the Southern Poverty Law
Center and other left-wing extremists to sensationalize "right-wing
extremists," you and they have diverted our nation from the real problems and
effective solutions.

Legitimate questions have been raised about federal government power that
intrudes into and micromanages every aspect of our lives, a situation so
feared by our nation's Founders that they limited legitimate federal powers
to only those expressly stated in the Constitution.  As time has passed those
limits have been trampled.  The rights of the people and the powers reserved
to the states by the Tenth Amendment have been usurped by every branch of the
federal leviathan, even by the judiciary.  Instead of checks and balances,
the branches of the federal government today work as a cruel partnership
grinding the American taxpayer and family for more than half of what they
earn.

The list of abuses is long - warrantless search and seizure; the forfeiture
of assets (even of innocent parties) without trial; financing profligate
federal spending by abusive and confiscatory tax policies; takings of private
property in the name of environmentalism; twisted Supreme Court holdings that
claim a right of privacy that protects no privacy, but allows the brains to
be sucked from unborn, viable children; increasingly militarized federal
police forces perpetrating the death of too many innocent children and their
parents.  Instead of redressing the deadly abuses of federal power, the
federal government has increased, not limited, federal power and rewarded the
US Marshals killers of a mother and child with citations for "bravery."

In the Reagan era, we decried activities by the "Evil Empire's" KGB
police-state, such as secret trials, anonymous witnesses, and warrantless
electronic eavesdropping.  In the Clinton era, we are emulating those same
KGB police-state tactics as features of Clinton's "anti-terrorist"
legislation.  Perhaps this bizarre perversion of our government is partly a
byproduct of Clinton's admiring collegiate travel to Moscow (instead of to
the Vietnam War), but this is certainly no way to assuage the fears of
Americans who believe that the federal government is running amok.

By wallowing in sensationalism and diverting our attention from developing
effective solutions, corporate media allow the problems to chain-react until
reaching flashpoint.  USA Today and other corporate media should become part
of the solution instead of the problem -- we won't hold our breath.

Edgar A. Suter MD
National Chair
Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research Inc.
a non-profit 501c(4) physicians think tank
5201 Norris Canyon Road #220
San Ramon CA 94583
voice 510-277-0333
FAX 510-277-1568
e-mail EdgarSuter@aol.com