Editor's Commentary: The stories told below are repeated thousands of times every day, in one form or another, as the U.S. government steps up it's humiliating treatment of its citizens on the streets and in airports across the country. Deep down, most people know that the state aggression against us has nothing to do with terrorism, national nor personal security.

We've seen and experience it in peaceful protests where armored police in Star War attire attack us us verbally, with gas, water cannons, tasers, batons and guns. We've also seen and experienced it in airports, randomly calling people out of line after they and their baggage have passed through the x-ray machines, ordering people to either expose themselves fully in body scanners or strip searches or to subject themselves to strangers who grope them, feel their genitals and other private parts. They harrass us publically, calling attention to us as "problem passengers" in full view of other travelers. They give us the "option" of looking at our virtual nakedness in body scanners, strip searching us or groping us with their hands.

When we object, they call public attention to us, present us as a threat to the security of those around us. If we attempt to explain our predicament, they further debase us by expressing sympathy and "concern", patronizing us as though we are their children. More objections lead to a uniformed airport cop tearing up our airline ticket before our eyes and escorting us from the airport - just to teach us a lesson. Refusing to obey gives them reason to haul us off to jail. Other travelers who view this treatment become fearful for themselves and sympathetic toward us. The still ignorant are thankful that they are being protected from "the terrorists."

If not for the security reasons they allege, why is the government insisting on these searches? It certainly doesn't encourage us to vote for them in the next election. But then, politicians "win" elections in the US whether we want them in office or not. Let's say it again: The United States of America is not a democracy.

We posit at least two reasons for this new level of oppression:

The first is the state demonstrating its power and "right" to humiliate people into new levels submission, breaking their spirits and stripping them of their intelligence and willfullness. The second reason is closely related to the first: In the last decade, those who control the U.S. government have demonstrated before the world, their ability to intentionally wreck nations, destroy cultures, imprison, rape, torture and kill with impunity. They increase their belligerance without apology or any serious attempt to justify or even rationalize their crimes against humanity. The psychological impact of this behavior serves them and their agenda well. Their message is, "We are fighting an eternal war on terror. We have set new limits to your freedom and there's not a goddamned thing you can do about it. It's for your own good. Shut up and do as we say ... or else."

In effect, the state is telling us that we have no right to question nor complain and that regardless, our objections will have no effect on their policies and actions. It is a tactical maneuver applying humiliation as an instrument of domination. If they can force you to take down our pants in the presence of strangers, what other demands can you hope to refuse or deny them? Their objective is to overwhelm, leaving us with a sense of futility and helplessness, eliminating any impediment or shred of resistance to their dominance over our lives. Another rather obvious result of this domestic insult is to detract attention away from their theft of the national treasury and US foreign policy and its wars abroad. The corporate media's heavy emphasis on stories like those told by MSNBC is also worth thinking about. The more outraged we become about this treatment, the less we focus on the economy and war.

A third reason that the police state as emerged in airports across the U.S., Canada and Europe is money. The TSA received $6.8 Billion in 2008, budgeted by the Democrat controlled congress. In the first quarter of that year, the profits of L-3 Communications, a private contractor selling body scanners to the TSA, soared:

The only remaining question is what if anything will we do about this broad insult on our person and society. What will be our response? The masters of the ruling class are forcing us either into total submission - or to rise up against them and pay the price of the freedom and dignity that should define us as human beings.

- Les Blough, Editor

Young Boy Strip Searched By TSA

TSA forces cancer survivor to show prosthetic breast

A longtime Charlotte, N.C., flight attendant and cancer survivor told a local television station that she was forced to show her prosthetic breast during a pat-down.

Cathy Bossi, who works for U.S. Airways, said she received the pat-down after declining to do the full-body scan because of radiation concerns.

The TSA screener "put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' " Bossi told the station. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.' "

Bossi said she removed the prosthetic from her bra. She did not take the name of the agent, she said, "because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."

For Americans who wear prosthetics — either because they are cancer survivors or have lost a limb — or who have undergone hip replacements or have a pacemaker, the humiliation of the TSA's new security procedures — choosing between a body scan or body search — is even worse.

Musa Mayer has worn a breast prosthesis for 21 years since her mastectomy and is used to the alarms it sets off at airport security. But nothing prepared her for the "invasive and embarrassing" experience of being patted down, poked and examined recently while passing through airport security at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.

"I asked the supervisor if she realized that there are 3 million women who have had breast cancer in the U.S., many of whom wear breast prostheses. Will each of us now have to undergo this humiliating, time-consuming routine every time we pass through one of these new body scanners?" she said in an e-mail to msnbc.com.