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lydyIf you haven't read Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog entry entitled Repealing Godwin's Law, you should.
I find myself completely overwhelmed. It's not good for a manic depressive to be depressed, but I cannot imagine how I can follow the news and avoid despair. Mind, I've despaired before, and I'm still here. I know how to fight despair. Anyone who doesn't despair, now and again, these last few years does not understand the gravity of the situation. Everything we ever were as a country is being stripped away, it's as if my country were being skinned alive. The human body can survive a remarkably long time while being carefully flayed, did you know that?
Despair doesn't mean disengagement. It doesn't mean giving up. Some of the finest moments in human history are people fighting against impossible odds for an unlikely victory. They don't always win. Despair can be a call to arms. Our great experiment is only 225 years old. The example of the United States was a key factor in the spread of democracy, imperfect but an improvement over most dictatorships. I do not want to us to set ourselves apart from the civilized nations of the world now.
The Geneva Conventions broached? Torture? Capital punishment without appropriate legal representation or judicial review? How does this differ, except in scale, from many of the brutal regimes we have criticized? A difference in scale can be a difference in kind, but the protection of the law is vital for a civilized society. Our entire governmental structure is based on checks and balances. When the legislative branch capitulates without a fight, and the judiciary at best looks the other way, and at worst is complicit in allowing executive order to undermine it, how can we trust that the scale of these things will remain small? Right now, as I understand it, if you were to return to the US from Afghanistan, having done some relief work there, the US Customs could refuse to allow you to return to your own country, deport you to Guantanamo under suspicion of having been in league with terrorists while in Afghanistan, refuse to permit you bail, an attorney, or a jury trial. They don't even have to tell your family where you are. Is this still a difference in kind? Or is it merely a difference in scale. Can they do this if you are returning from Canada, Mexico, France? I think they can, if they want.
Remember the paranoid nonsense going around in the Seventies about all the horrible things the government was doing? Experimenting on unsuspecting subjects using LSD. Exposing people to radiation without telling them. Imprisoning political radicals that the FBI knew were innocent on bogus charges. Manufacturing evidence to convict political activists. Secretly overthrowing a foreign government, a legally elected foreign government. Torturing and killing people in South America. Remember all that? Every one of those statements is true. Every one. I tell you now, they did all that with far greater legal constraints upon the executive branch than exist now. The evil Patriot Act has swept away what protections we had against those things, and many others. If they did all that in the late Sixties and early Seventies, responding to opposition to the Vietnam War, what will they do in the 2000's? Is it ok if they just do it away from home, to small dark people on the other side of the world? Can we watch them violate the basic civil contract and ignore essential human rights in Iraq without worrying too much about whether it follows us home? I tell you now, it will follow us home. It will follow us home.
I find myself completely overwhelmed. It's not good for a manic depressive to be depressed, but I cannot imagine how I can follow the news and avoid despair. Mind, I've despaired before, and I'm still here. I know how to fight despair. Anyone who doesn't despair, now and again, these last few years does not understand the gravity of the situation. Everything we ever were as a country is being stripped away, it's as if my country were being skinned alive. The human body can survive a remarkably long time while being carefully flayed, did you know that?
Despair doesn't mean disengagement. It doesn't mean giving up. Some of the finest moments in human history are people fighting against impossible odds for an unlikely victory. They don't always win. Despair can be a call to arms. Our great experiment is only 225 years old. The example of the United States was a key factor in the spread of democracy, imperfect but an improvement over most dictatorships. I do not want to us to set ourselves apart from the civilized nations of the world now.
The Geneva Conventions broached? Torture? Capital punishment without appropriate legal representation or judicial review? How does this differ, except in scale, from many of the brutal regimes we have criticized? A difference in scale can be a difference in kind, but the protection of the law is vital for a civilized society. Our entire governmental structure is based on checks and balances. When the legislative branch capitulates without a fight, and the judiciary at best looks the other way, and at worst is complicit in allowing executive order to undermine it, how can we trust that the scale of these things will remain small? Right now, as I understand it, if you were to return to the US from Afghanistan, having done some relief work there, the US Customs could refuse to allow you to return to your own country, deport you to Guantanamo under suspicion of having been in league with terrorists while in Afghanistan, refuse to permit you bail, an attorney, or a jury trial. They don't even have to tell your family where you are. Is this still a difference in kind? Or is it merely a difference in scale. Can they do this if you are returning from Canada, Mexico, France? I think they can, if they want.
Remember the paranoid nonsense going around in the Seventies about all the horrible things the government was doing? Experimenting on unsuspecting subjects using LSD. Exposing people to radiation without telling them. Imprisoning political radicals that the FBI knew were innocent on bogus charges. Manufacturing evidence to convict political activists. Secretly overthrowing a foreign government, a legally elected foreign government. Torturing and killing people in South America. Remember all that? Every one of those statements is true. Every one. I tell you now, they did all that with far greater legal constraints upon the executive branch than exist now. The evil Patriot Act has swept away what protections we had against those things, and many others. If they did all that in the late Sixties and early Seventies, responding to opposition to the Vietnam War, what will they do in the 2000's? Is it ok if they just do it away from home, to small dark people on the other side of the world? Can we watch them violate the basic civil contract and ignore essential human rights in Iraq without worrying too much about whether it follows us home? I tell you now, it will follow us home. It will follow us home.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 03:41 pm (UTC)That's a nice sophistry, but the word fight does not solely refer to physical violence. When you call your congresscritter and express your opposition to the war against Iraq, you are fighting for peace. When you donate money to AIDS relief in Africa, you are fighting for peace. When you fight racism in your workplace, you are fighting for peace.
I'm opposed to revolution, myself. I don't see that much good can come of it, unless people's physical situation is much, much, much worse than it is, now. Violence and chaos create hardship and death. If this is not an improvement over "normal" life, then why should the average Joe feel liberated? (My favorite protest sign: It's hard to feel liberated when you're dead.) Why should he sign on to the revolution? If he doesn't, then all you can do is set up a different dictatorship, with yourself in charge, or, more likely, lose to another group that capitalizes on your revolution. See the Russian revolution for a classic example, the French revolution is another.
No, I don't believe in the Revolution. I do believe in fighting for peace and justice.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-30 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-30 06:18 am (UTC)One of my favorite Emma Goldman stories:
Emma was living with Sasha Berkman and his cousin Fedya, in what was almost certainly a troika, though books written and published in the 30s are never explicit about such things. One day, Fedya brought Emma home some roses. Sasha, a consistently self-righteous prig, exploded in anger, insisting that any extra money that they had must be used for the Revolution, not for their own personal comfort. Emma, though, loved the roses. Eventually, Sasha reluctantly allowed as how if roses made Emma so happy that she had that much extra energy for the Revolution, then buying her roses was a legitimate use of their funds. Fiction is roses, but the work is still out there.