archy

Kafka lives
The news this morning has definite edge to it. A creepy, ironic edge. I feel like I woke up into an old Eastern European political novel.

My government once again openly defends suspending the Bill of Rights.

Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.

A pundit claims killing people to intimidate their group isn't terrorism if your intentions are pure.

Tucker Carlson says on the air, twice, that he thinks it's a good thing the French government blew up the Greenpeace ship and killed some of its crew, unprovoked. He then goes on to call this "vandalism" rather than "terrorism."

[...]

I don’t support terrorism. It was not an act of terrorism, that is an important distinction. Since you are the head of Greenpeace you should do your research. The French Government did not intend to kill anyone, therefore it is not terrorism. This is an important distinction. Vandalizing the ship was impressive on France’s part. I don’t support terror.

A mourning mother becomes a threat to national security because she might mar the view for some important people.

Cindy Sheehan phoned me from Texas a few minutes ago to say that she's been informed that beginning Thursday, she and her companions will be considered a threat to national security and will be arrested. Coincidentally, Thursday is the day that Rice and Rumsfeld visit the ranch, and Friday is a fundraiser event for the haves and the have mores.

Taking a bomb onto a passenger airplane isn't terrorism. I'm terrorised just to know someone in authority might believe that. Gitmo. Politicised science. Extraordinary rendition. The Patriot Act. The phrase "Homeland security." Somehow my country has become East Balkoslavia, 1938.

If I go back to bed now, can I wake and discover it was all a dream? I want it to still be August 2000, with the Enlightenment still prevailing, international law still upheld by my country, the Bill of Rights still the law of the land, Clinton in the White House, and another Democratic president likely for the future. It looks like those people who thought the turn of the millenium whould bring forth something unspeakably horrible had the right dope.