Drive against Civil LibertiesWithin the American capitalist class there are many conflicting crosscurrents; conflicts arise from sectional differences, power interests, ideological antagonisms, economic loyalties, etc. On the question of civil liberties these differences are no less real. The hysteria, then, was in its degree an aberration of American political life. The current drive against civil liberties is more ominous, not because it is more violent or more hysterical. Today, however, there is no reason to believe that our “vanishing civil liberties” will be returned by a swing of the pendulum.