Peace or freedom?

I support peace and peace of mind. I like quiet afternoons and relaxing evenings. I like getting along. But given a choice, I would rather be free and fighting than chained and submissive.

I dare to say I would rather be free and starving than enslaved and bloated.
If the worst fears of Patriots are right, I may soon have my chance to prove it.

All across America mass exercises in population control are occurring. The litany of abuses of the Bill of Rights is too long, and frankly, too depressing, to summarize here. Suffice it to say that Pat Robertson is allowed to advocate the murder of a foreign leader (Hugo Chavez, Venezuela) on national television, but librarians attending peace rallies have been investigated and harassed by FBI agents.

Silly me. Silly rabbit. I always thought walking in circles with a sign was a lot less threatening than a call to murder. I guess it depends on who you threaten.

The powers-that-be have (for a long time now) been ratcheting up the pressure and the rhetoric against freedom, in favor of fascism, disguised in words and phrases like “security,” “homeland,” “homeland security,” “terror,” “terror alert,” “the enemy,” “Islam,” “Jihad,” and on and on. In recent days I’ve noticed enormous amounts of newspaper stories on the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, but seen little if anything on the start of the Jewish Rosh Hashanah and the coming Yom Kippur. And as Calvin McGershom well knows, the Pagan holiday celebrations are usually either completely ignored or fire-bombed.

Meaning is created and communicated in several ways, including, among others, symbols, art, music and language. Language is not the least of these. Rhetoric, as the study of language and communication is called, is fundamental to how we perceive and act in the world. I’ve spent many years of my life studying words, language, argument, media and all the subjects which are related – I’ve been intrigued with words since I was a child – and I spent a few years of academic study on the subject in addition to diligent observation in my private life and work in my professional. I feel qualified to say everyone who consumes media, whether it be books, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, Internet, etc. should be required to study media and language. Only hermits with large weapons arsenals can afford not to.

Marshall McLuhan is an icon of Communication Theory. Google his name, read his writings. The most well-known is “The Medium is the Message.” Deep and thorough. He once said “Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business.”

The masses have been distracted by Gay Marriage and Social Security while States Rights fall by the wayside and federal power congeals into a sticky, slimy pus. The Greed Disease causes every wound on the epidermis of America to spew forth this liberty-squashing pus. The patriot antibodies have to be quite strong to resist the cancerous Greed Disease.

G Dub (Bush) used the fiasco surrounding the Hurricane Katrina disaster to push for complete federal military control in emergency situations and to give away billions of taxpayer dollars to the usual-suspect government contractors. Just what I needed to remind me of democracy and freedom – soldiers walking the streets, pointing machine guns at U.S. citizens, and police and other law enforcement mercenaries guarding every exit in and out of the city.

Now G Dub has floated the possibility of a military-enforced quarantine in the event of an avian flu (H5N1) outbreak in the U.S., which rascal Senator Tom Harkin has called inevitable, “not if but when.” I get nervous anytime I hear the Feds say “not if but when.” They say it’s a matter of “not if but when” before another, larger, 9-11 style terror event. To me, that’s like saying it’s “not if but when” you’ll be in a horrible car crash. They tell everyone to buckle their seatbelts for impending doom, but they refuse to slow the car down.

I’ve never heard of Bush, Harkin, or any political bigwig mention the avian flu threat before, though I’ve been following the story for many months. And the first time bird flu is mentioned publicly by influential politicians, it’s side-by-side with martial law. Curious.

I’m reminded of a book by French author Albert Camus, “La Peste” (The Plague), about a plague-infested and quarantined city in France in the 1940’s. It was an allegory to the Nazi occupation of France and the Vichy (traitor) government. As this blog’s official Frenchie expert, I can assure, contrary to what you may hear from the French-hating right wing, during the Nazi occupation there were basically two Frances. The “official” and traitor Vichy government, and La Resistance which fought actively and with subterfuge against the German invaders. The two should not be confused.

To bring it back around – freedom or peace?
Today we have neither.
True, many Americans live in relative peace, in the fact they are not forced to go off to war and they do not endure gunfights in their neighborhoods (this is not true of all America). But if the strategic goals of our nation (empire?) continue to follow the PNAC path, more and more citizens must be called into to fight or have the fight brought to them.
True, we have more freedom than many nations. The fact I am able to post this writing is evidence of such. But freedom is being eroded on many fronts. When (not if) the hammer comes down, it may be too late. The preparations are being made for hammers to fall on all fronts at once, to minimize the possibility of resistance.

The legal fact is, if the right agent of the right agency designated me an “enemy combatant,” I now could be locked up indefinitely without charge or trial, and my friends and family would never be informed. I could disappear. I would become invisible to the public, and being invisible “they” could do anything to me. To me, U.S. forces kidnapping citizens in the night is no different than mercenaries doing the same. The right to having an arrest recognized and publicly justified in legal terms, let alone a trial by jury, is essential to the idea of America. Read the fucking Constitution.

Of course, the classic counter-argument is “America wouldn’t do that.” Let’s not argue what greedy politicians and so-called leaders would or wouldn’t do for their own benefit – it’s what they COULD do. And under the current system, those in power positions can do a lot in secret with absolutely no oversight. That is NOT a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

If I ever vanish or am found dead and CNN reports a suicide, don’t believe it. If it’s a “tragic accident,” question it. Burglary gone wrong or sudden heart attack – be wary.

How free are we? How ingrained and overlooked are the controls on your “freedom”? You cannot hunt or fish without a license. As far as I know, you CAN still grow a personal garden with little trouble, but if you want to farm, you’re in for a bureaucratic maze. The Supreme Court has ruled your home can be taken and given to a private developer for tax money and bribes, and crops (like Hemp or Cannabis) grown for individual use in your own home can be regulated by the Interstate Commerce Clause.

To get a job you need a birth certificate and a social security number, a VISA or an employer that hires illegals. You also need a permanent address, a home phone number and a list of references. To rent a car or reserve a hotel you need a credit card. To purchase property? Ha! I knew a homeless guy in Davenport years ago named Floyd, and he WAS crazy, but he tried to get back on his feet and couldn’t do shit without the right papers. Luckily, he was able to use an arrest record as a form of ID to help get an SSN # and a bus ticket out of here. God forbid if he tried to trap a squirrel and cook it for a meal. The knife to skin it might be longer than 5 inches (illegal) and he could be thrown in jail for trespassing on public or private property or being a “vagrant, not to mention fined by the DNR for hunting without a license.

How free are you when you need a license to feed yourself?

Maybe I’m “eccentric,” but I subscribe to a somewhat anarchist philosophy, “in the best sense of the word,” as Utah Phillips would say. Utah Phillips, folk hero and lyrical genius, tells a story of the ultimate anarchist, in the best sense of the word, who once told a judge:
“What good is the law? The good people don’t need it and the bad people don’t follow it.”

Spoken like a man who values freedom and uncommon sense. We need to resurrect freedom and uncommon sense.

The future is coming; oops, it’s here.
It’s the past, evolving and repeating.

-J.A.H.

The past didn’t go anywhere.
“I can go outside and pick up a rock that’s older than the oldest song you know, and drop it on your foot. Now, the past didn’t go anywhere, did it? It’s right here, right now. I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn’t live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it would get them in serious trouble.”
-Utah Philips

Recommended reading:
Biological agents used on peace protesters in DC?
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1221

Recommended listening:
Utah Phillips with Ani Difranco