- George W. Bush is out of control.
-
- I'll say it again.
-
- George W. Bush is out of control.
-
- I'm waiting for the black government cars to come squealing
up in front of my house, for the thump of leather on my stairs, for the
sound of knuckles on my door, for the feel of steel braceleting my wrists,
for the smell of urine in some dank Federal holding cell as I listen to
questions from men who no longer feel the constricting boundaries of constitutional
law abutting their duties.
-
- Sounds paranoid, doesn't it? Straight out of the Turner
Diaries, maybe. Sounds like I'm waiting for the ominous whop-whop-whop
of the blades on a black helicopter churning the air over my home. Sounds
like I'm waiting to find a laser dot on my chest above my heart before
the glass breaks and the bullet pushes my guts out past my spine.
-
- Crazy, right?
-
- Ask Andrew J. O'Conner of Santa Fe, New Mexico if it
sounds crazy. Mr. O'Conner, a former public defender from Santa Fe, was
arrested in a public library and interrogated by Secret Service agents
for five hours on February 13th.
(See: Santa Fe Police Arrest Attorney For
Internet Comments
Also see: Biblical "burning bush" Comment Puts Man In Jail
3 Years )
-
- His crime?
-
- He said "Bush is out of control" on an internet
chat room, and was arrested for threatening the President.
-
- Ask Bernadette Devlin McAliskey of Ireland if it sounds
crazy. She was recently passing through Chicago from Dublin, where she
passed security, when she heard her name called over a loudspeaker. When
she went up to the ticket counter, three men and one woman surrounded her
and grabbed her passport. McAliskey was informed that she had been reported
to be a "potential or real threat to the United States."
-
- Bernadette Devlin McAliskey has spent the better part
of her life struggling for the Irish nationalist cause. She did not lob
Molotov cocktails at police. Instead, she became a member of British Parliament
at age 21, the youngest person ever elected to that post. In 1981 she
and her husband were shot by a loyalist death squad in their home. She
has traveled to America on a regular basis for the last thirty years, and
has been given the keys to the cities of San Francisco and New York.
-
- Upon her detention in Chicago last month, McAliskey was
fingerprinted and photographed. One of the men holding her told her that
he was going to throw her in prison. When she snapped back that she had
rights, she was told not to make the boss angry, because he shoots people.
"After 9/11," said one officer, "nobody has any rights."
-
- "You've evaded us before," said the officer
before McAliskey was deported back to Ireland, "but you're not going
to do it now." She never found out for sure how she was a threat to
the United States, and is currently filing a formal complaint with the
U.S. consulate in Dublin.
-
- There are those who will brush these incidents off.
Andrew O'Conner has been an activist for years, and has not hidden his
disdain for this looming war in Iraq. Bernadette McAliskey is a world-famous
fighter for her people. Some will say the opinions and freedoms of people
like this do not matter in the grand scheme. Others will wave these incidents
away as random examples of thoughtless action by petty dictators who were
foolishly given badges and authority.
-
- I don't.
-
- It is ironic, in a grisly sort of way. Hard-right conservatives
spent the entirety of the Clinton administration baying to anyone fearful
enough to listen that the President was coming for their freedoms, that
it was only a matter of time before the Bill of Rights was destroyed. The
myth of the black helicopters, the apocalyptic views of the Turner Diaries,
and a smoking crater in Oklahoma City all testified to the brittle paranoia
these people promulgated in those years.
-
- Now, those same people have representatives with parallel
views on virtually every domestic and foreign policy idea in control of
the House, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court, the intelligence
services and the United States military. These are the people who brought
us the Patriot Act, versions 1.0 and 2.0, the people who are responsible
for the most incredible constitutional redactions in our history.
-
- Ask Mr. O'Conner and Ms. McAliskey about it. They can
tell you what happens to undesirables these days.
-
- When you murder peaceful dissent in America, you murder
America itself. When you harass innocent people for their past and present
views, you spread fear within an already terrified nation. This is not
about some fool of a Secret Service agent jumping the gun on an innocuous
online comment, or an airline security officer with a penchant for bullyragging
55 year old women. This is a failure from the top down, an empowerment
- by the man charged with defending our constitution - of lesser jackasses
with large badges who do not understand nor care for the importance of
their positions. This is about failed leadership, and the despoiling of
everything that makes this place precious and unique and sacred.
-
- In other words, Bush is out of control.
-
- Bush is out of control.
-
- Bush is out of control.
-
- Come and get me.
|
