Friday, December 23, 2005

Another Davis Dipsy-Do

One of the resident “Bushwhackers” at the Lexington Herald-Leader is Merlene Davis, who…well…doesn’t like WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), especially of the male variety, of which the prez is one, by his own account. Ms. Davis was in an obvious fit of perturbation while writing a recent column, snippets of which are noted below in black type, with a few Muckraker remarks in red.

How safe do you feel? “Depends on where you are – Nicholasville Road or Fort Campbell. Considering no terrorist attacks in this country for more than four years, the USA is not too bad a place. Ask the folks in Spain and England and Indonesia and Holland and Sudan and Somalia and Lebanon and Zimbabwe and Kenya. Only two million have been murdered by Islamic butchers in Sudan lately, though, so maybe folk there are safer than all of us, huh?”

In a news conference Monday, President Bush said he authorized more than 30 incidents of warrantless domestic wiretaps, but only against "those with known links to Al-Qaida," so America would be safe. “So what!”

"I intend to do so so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of enemies wanting to kill American citizens," he said. “So what!”

The fact that there is a longstanding process in place through which the president could have asked for and gotten the wiretaps doesn't seem to matter. “Do you ever read anything besides the Herald-Leader…or even that? The reasons he gave, particularly concerning the time element and the latest technology involved, were instructive to people who read/listen.”

Sidestepping due process doesn't diminish civil liberties, Bush said. It keeps us all safe. “Yeah…but due process is in the eye of the beholder. The fact that some folk disagree with the prez doesn’t mean he’s wrong. It just means that elections are coming up next year. Even at that, the folk in Congress didn’t let the Patriot Act die.”

He said that as president, he had the right to authorize the eavesdropping to prevent another terrorist attack like the one on Sept. 11, 2001. “Yeah…that’s exactly how Slick Willie let the FBI/CIA catch old Aldrich Ames, perhaps the most egregious traitor in American history. You figure the big guy (with his Mardi Gras beads…remember how you liked them) threatened your safety when he did that?”

What more do we have to give up for our safety's sake? The freedoms we boast of in America, the rights we claim places like Afghanistan and Iraq do not have, are slowly but surely disappearing. “Such as? Okay…granted…there are speed limits on Lexington streets, so you might be picked up (without a warrant) if you’re tooling along too fast, with your mind on a little, typical ‘hate piece’ for the paper instead of on the road. Try e-mailing a tidbit about the nerve gas at the munitions depot over near Richmond, though, and VOILA!!!…a warrantless snatching of your hard drive!!!! Or somebody recording your cell-phone info about how to make a meatloaf. Oh…to be in Afghanistan instead of this awful monarchy ruled by King George XLIII.”

And it's not surreptitious. We're giving them up willingly. “Exactly what’s not surreptitious? Anyway, if something’s given up willingly, it can’t, by definition, be given up surreptitiously, unless, of course, it’s like a situation right off the Oval Office with an intern. Chalk one up for yourself. Everyone’s in on the act, watching everything being given up…un-surreptitiously, that is.”

We want to give up the rights this country's founders placed in our Constitution because we think it will help us return to the old days when we had nothing to fear. “Exactly what ‘old days’ do you have in mind? Try 1941-45, when FDR suspended habeas corpus – horrors, he was returning us to the ‘old days,’ maybe? Or, there was Lincoln and his suspension of habeas corpus. Didn’t he even declare martial law? And there was that Emancipation Proclamation. Egad…how could he do such a thing? That definitely was un-Constitutional.”

Those days are gone, folks. And with the shortcuts the White House is taking, when will we stop fearing terrorists and start fearing our government? “Do I have to make a choice between the ghost of Mohammad Atta (look him up if you’ve forgotten) in case he’s still hovering around the WTC? I haven’t noticed much fear around here of the federalistas, but folk that run the IRS can be scary. If you’re worried, be sure to have plenty of lights around your house so that no square inch of property is not covered, and be sure your gun permit (surely you have one) is in good order. Folk in Afghanistan – that paradise – all have guns, and folk in Iraq have sharp knives in case a quick beheading (preferably of a white anglo-saxon Protestant male-factor) is in order.”

When it was revealed that the United States has conducted kidnappings of suspected terrorists and whisked them to secret torture chambers, there was a little grumbling, but not as much as you would think. “I’m surprised you heard any grumbling. The whisking of suspected terrorists is not much of a worry around these parts. Actually, suspected terrorists are usually arrested, not kidnapped. Kidnapping is an Al Qaeda thing…remember Daniel Pearl?”

That was overseas, we said. That doesn't happen here. “Yeah! You want torture? Try the Holocaust camps. Try the Japanese coal mines in WWII, where American GIs were enslaved. Try the Bataan Death March. Try Hanoi, where John McCain lived for a while. Think Malmedy almost exactly 61 years ago – nearly 80 American POWs gunned down or clubbed to death. Yeah…that was overseas. And, you’re right…it doesn’t happen here. The guys on Death Rows and child-molesters deserve to be horse-whipped every day, but that doesn’t happen here.”

When some of the detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were asking for their civil rights, we Americans closed our ears. “They don’t have any civil rights. They gave them up when they shot at American GIs. The Americans in German stalags gave up their civil rights when they shot at Germans in WWII. By contrast, Tookie Williams, a cold-blooded murderer of four people and initiator of the murderous Crips, exercised his ‘civil rights’ for over 20 years before getting what he deserved. The same is true for any white man who has gone the same route.”

The end justified the means, we said. “Precisely what ‘end’ do you have in mind? And precisely to what ‘means’ do you refer?”

With these new circumventions of our laws, with us doing things we accuse terrorists of doing, what distinguishes us from them? “That is a truly incredible question. For starters, have you heard of any beheadings in the Fayette County jail lately?”

Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance of e-mails and phone calls of folks on our home soil without first getting a court warrant. “So……”

Did he have a change of heart, once his actions were revealed? “Ya got me.”

No. “Aw…you knew all the time.” Bush criticized the leak that led to the eavesdropping report in The New York Times a week ago, instead of being critical of the spying he had authorized. “You gotta hand it to him. He can be stubborn. It’s easy for you, with no responsibility for any life-or-death decisions on a daily – or any – basis to say that, but try putting yourself in his place.”

Kill the messenger. “Hey…that’s not a bad idea for how to handle the New York Times. You stumbled headlong into a truth. Hopefully, that won’t ruin your appetite, but being attacked by a truth can be traumatic, especially if you’re not accustomed to being confronted by the truth.”

Where are our minds, people? “Good question! Start by trying to determine where yours is.” Surely we can get at the terrorists without handing over our civil liberties to do so. Surely. “Yeah! An M-16 comes readily to mind for getting at terrorists, but only with the proper permit, of course. SURELY!!!”

Even though the White House said the president has a right to do such things, the Times said the spy program was reined in when the administration learned the story was about to come out. “Wonder why? How many of your e-mail messages would you like the public to see? How would such disclosure affect your credibility, not to mention your methods, the noting of which might compromise your ability to get the ‘news.’ Get it? In WWII, there was a saying: ‘Loose lips sink ships.’”

Benjamin Franklin is widely quoted as saying, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." “Have you determined the difference between ‘liberty’ and ‘essential liberty?’ If not, think about it. Franklin must have. Also, think about how much of your liberty of any kind you’ve given up. Was it essential or not? Or, have you given up none? If you haven’t, you’re either on another planet or somewhere under a rock.”

We Americans are giving up a lot to feel safe. “I haven’t noticed all that much. Name some of the ‘lot’ in a future column. Now, those in the military…that’s another matter.”

And yet, how much safer do you feel? “With this president, very safe. With Kerry or Gore…egad, what a thought!”

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

1 comment:

Jim said...

I keep hearing right wingers trying to defend the current administration's actions by invoking those of previous administrations. That similar activities might have occurred in the past is beside the point. The point is that the current administration is interpreting our constitution in ways that are dangerous to democracy. For instance, the idea that the President has unlimited authority to disregard our laws during a time of war (torture, wire-tapping, etc.) is ridiculous, especially considering the unending war we are currently fighting. Again, the fact that other countries and other Presidents have done these things does not justify them morally. We need to push our members of congress to push back and maintain the balance of power in D.C.