This letter is in response in part to President Bush's recent visit to China. In an Associated Press report, Mr. Bush "stands in firm opposition" to the way China represses its people. He went further to say, "We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labor rights not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential."

This is coming from a man who, with his handler Vice President Dick Cheney, has eviscerated the U.S. Constitution and has given new meaning to the word "freedom" as it pertains to Americans. The free press is the press of the corporate media. The media with high-dollar military contracts who would not dare report anything beyond what the neo-conservatives regurgitate to them.

Freedom of assembly is only free when the people wish to assemble in favor of the neo-con floor show. If you object, you may assemble a few miles away. Those who assemble against President Bush or his policies aren't violent. But the media again have portrayed them this way.

With the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, presidential directives and executive orders, the line between freedom and being considered a threat to national security is extremely fine - so fine that many Americans who are true patriots and speak out about issues that concern them risk a one-way trip to Guantanamo Bay, outside of U.S. laws that are designed to protect the rights of the people. Gitmo is an anything-goes jurisdiction.

I am not a crazy, wild-eyed Bush hater. But I am smart enough to know that the tune Mr. Bush played for China, doesn't sound as good when it plays in the United States.

Rick James, Wagener, S.C.