January

It's now mid-January. Since the last time I posted the problem with the NSA and the President making rather liberal use of technology to invade our privacy without judicial oversight has come to light. Needless to say, we are screwed.

Some will say "we are in a war" and may even remind us that Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War and that Roosevelt made use of that peverse invention of the concentration camp during the World War. Others will say that since the last time a law was made to deal with such issues there was no e-mail, no cell phones and no terrorists and that the President is making a reasonable accomodation to the times. Others will say that they have nothing to hide.

To all of them I guess you have to just stick to your guns and remind them that the Constitution is just about all that we have to protect and define us as free citizens and that Bush has done something pretty awful in terms of his oath to protect and defend that rule of law. Remind them of the murder of Cicero by Marc Anthony, the collapse of Athenian democracy and the destruction of the Weimar Republic. Before they start saying you are as nutty as Robert Byrd you might want to remind them that J. Edgar Hoover spent most of his time wiretapping people who weren't criminals; that in fact he pretty much ignored the Mafia while obsessing on Martin Luther King Jr. and others who were just exercising their rights as heroin flooded the streets. That technology doesn't preclude talking to a judge. That John Ashcroft (yes, John Ashcroft) had a problem with this blatant abuse of power. Oh, and that on 9/11 we were attacked by 19 assholes and somehow instead of dealing with that when we were legally reading their e-mail we managed to get ourselves into a jihad with a few million people because we bought crap intelligence on yellow cake uranium that our own experts discounted. So do we believe that we are in this war for a) oil b) to fufill a neocon fantasy or c) because we weren't able to read the e-mail of 280 million people or d) a and b. So why do they need to read YOUR e-mail?

We are screwed. They are katrinaing the whole fucking country.

Gitmo

NPR has given lawyers representing Gitmo prisoners recorders so they can report on the conditions that the Arab prisoners are being held in. It is absolutely incredible that in a constitutional democracy 500 people can be held in such conditions where all concepts of human rights short of judicial murder can be so easilly discarded. This is an outrage. Like the virtually ignored 2000 dead American soldiers these 500 reflect on something absolutely disgusting about our current body politic. We do not care who dies or suffers for us. We have no sense of social solidarity other than ridiculous magnets on the asses of our cars.

Gitmo is an auto-immune disorder in our democracy, as is the ability to wage war without personal responsibility. When a democracy can do these things we have a chronic problem that can kill us.

Strike!

We are all on a rent strike. Our city councilman, one of the cooler and more dedicated ones, came to cheer us on and give us some backbone. Time for a change. Time for power.

I've been thinking that one of the worst things about the modern conservative movement is that it discounts social justice and solidarity for the purposes of greed. It wants to drown government in the bathtub so we all can go out and live like rich people, except if we aren't, then we live like serfs, only we work in Wal-Mart instead of in the fields. When the going gets tough the tough get rich and let the poor drown. And then they cover their shame with Jesus bullshit and crap like fear of everything that doesn't look like Dick and Jane.

Their response to terrorism has been lame, but it is also something like an auto-immune disorder where the antibodies attack the body itself. They are fundamentalists too.

So, it is time to strike, no matter how small. Time to show solidarity. Time to not be a serf.

Monday Morning

Fall is finally here. The rains are over and now the air is as crisp as a macintosh apple. Today the early morning light struck the sides of the buildings with a color of an infused port wine and fire. Now it is time for work.

I have three projects due this Wednesday. It will be close. The good news is that I got to meet Charlie Rangel, one of the politicians I really admire, and one of the pieces is on David Paterson, another person I think is cool. It is a struggle, but it is fun.

To the editing room...