Fear and loathing: a rant (Day 45/365)

Yes, Mr. Bush, I am still afraid.

Your recent drumbeat of fear, cynically designed to portray you as the manly protector of our nation, has raised fears in me, to be sure, but not the ones you were hoping for.

Terrorists? Yes, they’re out there, yes, they want to hurt me, no, I am not afraid of them. I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of.

I’m afraid that my phone could be tapped. I’m afraid that someone could be flagging my more impertinent emails.

I’m afraid that a blog posting such as this one could get my name on a list somewhere. I’m afraid that the next time I go to get on a plane, I could be yanked because my name is on a list because I wrote a post like this one. I’m afraid that after I’m yanked, I could disappear into some semi-secret prison system, where I would have no lawyer, no trial, and no charges against me for as long as whoever put me there wants to keep me.

I’m afraid that someday this could happen just at my place of work or at home.

I’m afraid that my son could die in a misbegotten war for no valid reason. I’m afraid that my son could be captured in a war and tortured by his enemy captors in violation of every international law and standard, since clearly the U.S. does so.

I’m afraid that newspapers could be cowed into merely repeating the official party line. I’m afraid that they could never dig deep enough into official statements to determine their truth. I’m afraid that they could report lies and distortion, unchallenged, so they wouldn’t be accused of being “unbalanced.”

I’m afraid that most of the population of this country could be so stupid as to fall for vindictive social policies and elect people whose only interest is enriching the corporations who paid for their campaigns to deceive the people.

I’m afraid that the majority of the people in this country are not afraid of any of these things.

4 thoughts on “Fear and loathing: a rant (Day 45/365)

  1. AGREED! I’m afraid of all of these things, save for the son which I don’t have (thankfully).

    The blogging communities seem to be overwhelmingly leftist liberal, which is a nice escape from the snakepit of southern republicans we’re entrenched in here at home.

    Oh, and, hey! I plundered your email addy from Dwyer’s S.R. announcement and noticed you had a domain, so of course I had to check it out.

    By the by… did you ever get a chance to read my little novel?

  2. You gave me a little novel? Was that the sci-fi about the guy meeting himself? Or was that your brother’s little novel? Oh, wait, that’s right, your brother doesn’t write little novels.

  3. Yes, that was mine. I hadn’t heard from you about it and was hoping I’d get some much-anticipated input. I rather like it, but I know it’s not one for the masses. It was mainly just an exercise to see if I could do it.

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