Gloomy days

I read this header in a Usenet group article. And felt this way while on way from work, listening to Quake Radio/Air America with Randy Rhodes.
Randy was talking about the assault on Reverend Yearwood while he was standing in line to attend the Congressional hearing of General "Betray us" Petraeus (BTW, did you know Gen.Betray Us intends to run for President in 2012?!!) on September 11th. There was another lady who seems to be a regular protester/activist in Washington D.C who narrated how she and many other activists are harassed by the police, charged with all kinds of misdemeanors (assault, resistance, you name it) and prevented from attending rallies, threatened with expulsion from D.C if arrested again! A simple holding of a banner expressing anti-war sentiments can lead you to arrest and they can actually produce you in court, on frivolous charges, and then they have the gall to put you in jail for six months if you are going to repeat your behavior!

I have heard of police beating up anti-war protesters in San Francisco. Now how much of a disorderly conduct were they indulging in, is questionable. But to imagine the greatest democracy in the world ( a pinch of sarcasm intended as well) treating its citizenry with this kind of contempt and cruelty for expressing their freedom of speech, is simply depressing.
Does this happen only during evil regimes or is this how it's been all along, while presenting a facade of democracy to the world, often going to remote corners of the globe to ensure the same? My question was answered in the same hour of the programme, when the guest narrated how even Hilary Clinton ensures that hecklers and known "trouble makers" are denied access to political rallies.
Is this the beginning of the end for democracy as we know it? Which reminds me of the "The Forum" talk show on NPR that I heard this morning. The topic was "Capitalism and Democracy". Former secretary of labor Robert B. Reich talked about his latest book in which he discusses how the advent of supercapitalism in the past few decades has actually eroded democracy in America!
Contrary to how things happen back home in India, a simple business decision of opening a superstore in a locality is often put to referendum and voting, out here. I actually began to see the power of democracy, when I saw such voting for election measures, education policies and what not. Contrast this to how it trickles down from "the High Command" in India and people accept it, protesting or not.
And now you have private military, police high handedness in dealing with civil liberties (For heavens sake, somebody was arrested for holding out a copy of the Constitution and *reading it*)
Having watched the tamasha of Indian democracy being run by the likes of Sonia Gandhi, DeveGowda and Lalu/Syed Shahabuddin, it tickles me to think that we simply held America in too much of an awe, they are nothing more or nothing less than us. It also makes me worried, whether the bar was never held, if it has been a hoax all along.