I’ve been avoiding writing this little column for better than a month. But now, with the news clippings piling-up on my work desk and Thursday night’s wind outside, in Dylan’s fractured simile, howling like a hammer, it’s a good time. Healthy, too; constipation is never a good idea, and mental constipation can blank-out an entire personality. I know people who’ve been jammed-up for fifty years and it’s not pretty.
I’m calling this a column now, even though the term itself is a relic of the dying industrial age. Newspapers are falling dead all over the place and the Bay Area’s remaining metropolitan rag, The Chronicle, is wondering why on its own front page. No great mystery. You can find anything on the internet, including in most cases better and leafier prose.
Personally, I shall miss The Chron, which I like to read with my breakfast cereal every morning, mostly Jon Carroll and a couple of cartoons, and the Sudoku puzzle. But the news, you can get it anywhere now. I don’t need to read The Chronicle to know which way the wind blows like a hammer.
Headlines:
“Obama Justice Dept. keeps Bush stance on rendition lawsuits.”
“Obama, Bush detention policies are very similar.”
“Obama’s Justice Dept. in court over challenge to Bush wiretap policy.”
“Feds try to block lawyers from seeing classified document.”
“Bush detainee policy supported by Obama.”
“Obama administration request denied in wiretapping case.”
You know, if I was a cynical sort of fellow, I might begin wondering just what I got when I voted for change I could believe in.
Look, I like the guy personally. He’s charming as all hell, and literate, which alone is such a relief after the Reign of George the Idiot King, that I want to ignore the signs, unmistakable though they certainly are, that America’s flirtation with fascism has not ended with Barack Obama’s security policies.
If Nixon was doing what Obama’s doing on matters of governmental and police power, not to mention sending another wave of troops to Afghanistan (can Pakistan be far behind?), we’d all be in the streets, and you know it.
Documents on America’s widespread kidnapping of people and flying them to secret prisons around the world, where ‘friendly’ governments assist us in torturing our captives, remain hidden behind a fierce Justice Department fight to suppress them.
A bipartisan Senate Armed Services committee report said that Donald Rumsfeld and his friends instituted policies or torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere, but the Justice Department says it will not pursue prosecution against those who committed these terrible crimes. Meanwhile, the U.S. has decided to release a Guantanamo prisoner on condition that he agree not to sue us.
The mis-nomered ‘Patriot Act’ remains backed in its entirety by the Executive Branch (as well as the Democratic congressional leadership), including the law which authorizes the President to round up anybody he deems a ‘threat’ to ‘national security’. No one is talking about –– or rescinding –– the contract with Halliburton to build enormous detention camps.
Widespread wiretapping of citizens continues.
Yeah, Obama’s charming as hell. But as several beautiful women I know personally can attest, charm only goes so far. I like Michelle, too, and the kids. I like it that the First Family wants to get a Portuguese water dog because it reminds me of my friend Bolo, who has gone to where the water dogs can romp around all day.
It must be said that the domestic (and foreign) police policies of the new guy are not better in any material respect than the crazy, dangerous policies of the nutcase we just sent back to the ranch. We’d better be honest about it. Otherwise, we’re likely to awaken one day to the realization that we’d replaced “compassionate conservatism” with ‘fascism with a human face.’
