Mood:  on fire

representative gerald allen of alabama wants to ban novels with gay characters, "to protect children from the 'homosexual agenda.'" abc affiliates got scared and didn't show saving private ryan for fear of the fcc. the united states defense department reported that muslims actually don't "hate our freedom" but rather our policies. and, when only half the country wants you, apparently that implies a mandate from the lord... and the authority to do whatever the fuck you want

it's been promised that there will be no draft yet draft offices around the country have been dusting off their desks and cabinets, readying for the possibility that one could be "necessary." thing is, what would make one "necessary?" there would have to be something catastrophic, some huge attack on our country that cost a lot of lives and captured the rest of us in its tragedy... nothing like that could ever happen while bush is in charge, could it? surely, our intelligence agencies are smart enough to stop any attempts to, say, commandeer planes and crash them into buildings, just for an example. surely they won't be too busy only finding information that will support the administration (cause, we all know, objectivity has gone the way of the geneva convention and the dodo)

and, speaking of the geneva convention, the red cross says we're torturing (or, officially, we're using "psychological and physical coercion that [is] 'tantamount to torture'") the detainees at guantanamo. doctors have even "been assisting interrogators by providing them with information about the mental health of inmates and their vulnerabilities." isn't that nice? we've not only got half the voters behind the administration, raising jinogist fists and flying flags and affixing bumper stickers, we've got doctors (that is, actual educated, scientific-minded doctors) siding with all of it. of course, not all doctors will be liberal or against the "war on terror" or against torture for that matter, but at least we could hope they would be, don't you think? it would be better than this, what the red cross calls a "flagrant violation of medical ethics"

meanwhile, the nominee to replace ashcroft as attorney general, alberto gonzalez, has said that "Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners" has been rendered "obsolete" and "some of its provisions" have been rendered "quaint." that is, he's okay with torture, as long as those we are torturing are the "enemy" of course. and, we can define anyone as an enemy if we like. if we call them "enemy combatants" we can detain them however long we like and do whatever we think we have to do to make them give us all the information and cooperation we want. and, that's just what we're doing at guantanamo

and, now, we can use all the information we gain through torture as admissable evidence. so says principal deputy associate attorney general brian boyle. when attorneys argued some of the 550--that's the official count, at least--detainess at guantanamo were only being held because of evidence acquried through torture, boyle shrugged it off and argued that they have no constitutional rights. no shit, they have no constitutional rights, but there is common decency to take into account... oh wait, common decency might also allow gays to marry or unprepared mothers to abort or vegetative women to die. so, the geneva convention is quaint and obsolete and the enemy combatants don't qualify for basic civil rights. so, of course, we can torture them. hell, if they prove after a good amount of torture to have no useful information, we should probably just kill them so we don't have to feed them anymore. of course, then we might have to replace them with the red cross personnel who dare to tell people about what we're doing--surely, that sort of objective reporting would qualify as traitorous these days, wouldn't it?

thing is, purposefully or not, guanatanamo is just a testing ground for civil rights abuses to come right here in our "homeland"

anyone who thinks otherwise is probably selling something... or already in on the big conspiracy, not that that isn't something being sold to us every day

so, what's the cut off, anyway? at what point do we stop rambling in our blogs and arguing back and forth on message boards and stand up? when does the revolution begin?

and, to think, after watching the da vinci code decoded last night, i had intended to talk about christ today

watchlist:

• spiderman 2
• jeopardy
• degrassi the next generation