I amuse easily. Which is why I tried hard to hold back a smile, a chuckle (at the irony), when I read of GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s hacked e-mail.

The intrusiveness of that act, the back-door sneak attack on personal privacy is exactly what this Republican administration is doing to the American people every day: screening e-mails for “trigger”words, tracking travel of ordinary citizens, tapping phone lines,  seeking access to library records … the list of civil liberties and privacy issues invaded and run through the shredder by our government (which is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people) is endless. “Government hacking” is the crude term for citizen surveillance in the guise of homeland security.

Because we are “just ordinary people” that’s supposed to make it okay? I don’t think so. As we learned this week, when it comes to internet and computer hacking, rank doesn’t have its privileges, nor does legislative rank and file offer immunity from such attacks.

Perhaps if Palin or John McCain get back a bit of what their party and their President has been dishing out, they may think twice (I doubt it, but there’s always hope) about the ramifications of the laws and the bill of rights that the government and their President are systematically shredding, the undermining of civil liberties and free speech they increasingly enable, propose, and support. That persistent undermining of our basic rights erodes our faith in government, and most certainly in their party in power.

The hacker in question rooting through Palin’s e-mail is not of the government, he’s just a guy. With a business. With a certain set of skills, which he puts to questionable use.  And he hacked Sarah’s e-mail (and face it, hacking isn’t nice, it’s downright nasty), an account that she promptly closed. She’s ticked. Justifiably so. But I do wonder what he found (I haven’t looked), given that she has refused, among other things, to respond to a subpeona for records related to her political/ethical problems in Alaska. Given that she has put herself in the public eye, available for ethical, political and moral dissection under the public microscope, she has opened herself up to scrutiny.

Now granted, I shudder to think that my e-mail could be hacked, that my personal writings could be read by others. Like Sarah, I’d be really ticked. But there’s nothing there that I wouldn’t, or haven’t already said, out loud, in public, often in print.  It’s just how I am. I would, however, be infuriated by the audacity of a stranger peering into my personal business and figuring out that I want another shot at visiting The Three Windows and honoring the grounds of the Goddess (does that make me Wiccan, Pagan maybe?) at Machu Picchu (Sarah’s Wasilla church won’t like me).

Okay, Sarah. Time to look through that Republican lens and know firsthand a bit of what it feels like when our government hacks us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Please take a moment to send a message to your senator holding them accountable for their vote on the recent FISA bill. Either thank them for voting against it, or hold them accountable for voting for it. With just your zip code and a couple of clicks, you can send either a pre-filled message or customize it to send your own message.

Bush was acquitted on the other charges though the presidential signings would have been a guilty verdict if not for a prosecutorial procedural error in not providing verification of a signing statement entered as evidence.

The Prosecutors, from left: Michael Price, Michael Hughey and helper Karl Lukis

The trial took place over two days, in two-hour sessions, not a lot of time to present evidence. Time constraints limited the number of witnesses and the presentation of evidence for both prosecutors and defense teams, and resulted in the guilty finding on one of the four counts. Given the apparent ease with which, in just four hours, this student panel managed to convict the President on one of four counts, it would be interesting to see what a week’s worth of trial would produce. As it stands, the APSU prosecution team scored a major victory for civil liberties. This trial was staged at Austin Peay State University as part of a Constitutional Law I class taught by Professor Greg Rabidoux, Ph.D., J.D., and included a panel of Judges, Defense Counsel and Prosecutors, and witnesses.

Standing from left: Lead Defense, Jessica Lance, Frankie A. DeJesus and Matt Harris, APSU Professor Dr. Rabidoux,; Lead Prosecutors Michael Hughey, Mike Price and Liz Borsavage. The Judges, seated from left, Kasey Henricks, Emery Walters, Enderson Miranda, Ryan Knight and Zach Suggs

1. Disparate Treatment of US Citizens during Hurricane Katrina Response in violation of 14th Amendment. The Federal response to Hurricane Katrina provided unequal protection under the law by unqualified director Michael Brown who was picked by Bush as he passed over others more qualified.
2. Violation of Separation of Powers within Articles I-III of US Constitution. Bush is not just interpreting to clarify laws through signing statements, but actually and intentionally changing the actual law, attempting to assert power as a lawmaker and not just through his Article II [“He shall faithfully execute the law”] powers from the Constitution. A President is not a lawmaker. He has altered 750 laws. [Reference the following website: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060109_bergen.html].
3. Violation of Amendments I & IV, Freedom of Speech and Illegal Search and Seizure. Concerning wire tapping and eavesdropping on the American people: What is legal under the 4th Amendment and FISA, versus what has been made legal under the USA Patriot Act, and if in conflict, which one should prevail. There was deception on the part of the President in order to get the Patriot Act passed. Had Congress had the facts, they would not have signed the Patriot Act to begin with, considering the clear violations of privileges and due process rights offered by the Constitution under the Bill of Rights. The Prosecution presented FBI witness who testified she obtained no search warrants because of the President’s direct order to eavesdrop/wiretap.
4. Violation of the Geneva Convention Articles: Iraqis, specifically those in militias, were taken prisoner by the United States military when the U.S. military acted as an invading force. Prosecutors presented CIA witness who testified that most Iraqis captured and held had no ties with insurgents and were released. When Iraq was invaded, the Iraqi soldiers were of course supposed to defend their country. They were found by the CIA to be law abiding citizens, not terrorists. The definition of terrorist per G.W. Bush is “a suspected member of Al Quaeda or the Taliban”. For taking prisoners of war on Iraqi soil, the U.S. and military must adhere to Geneva Convention Articles.

Read the original article at: http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2007/11/28/apsu-mock-trial-united-states-vs-bush

The trial was staged as part of a Constitutional Law I class taught by Professor Greg Rabidoux, Ph.D., J.D., and included a panel of Judges, Defense Counsel and Prosecutors, and witnesses; it filled room 308 of the Morgan Center and was a “dream come true” for many of us in the audience. Class member Michael Price said he “jumped” at the opportunity to be a prosecutor in this case.

Dr. Rabidoux and Defense Attorney DeJesus

Dr. Rabidoux explained to the audience that he had incorporated several features and procedures from different judicial forums and different types of law to help students learn the most in the shortest amount of time. On Tuesday, the prosecution and defense read their opening statements to the panel of judges; the prosecutors presented two key witnesses, and cross examination and re-direct was allowed. Re-direct allows prosecutors to ask questions again of the witness after the defendants are done with cross examination.

Four charges were brought against President Bush:

1. Disparate Treatment of US Citizens during Hurricane Katrina Response in violation of 14th Amendment. The Federal response to Hurricane Katrina provided unequal protection under the law by unqualified director Michael Brown who was picked by Bush as he passed over others more qualified. Defense so far: qualifications of officials are approved by President and reviewed and then approved by Congress.
2. Violation of Separation of Powers within Articles I-III of US Constitution. Bush is not just interpreting to clarify laws through signing statements, but actually and intentionally changing the actual law, attempting to assert power as a lawmaker and not just through his Article II [“He shall faithfully execute the law”] powers from the Constitution. A President is not a lawmaker. He has altered 750 laws. [Reference the following website: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060109_bergen.html]. Defense questioning: Was he not defining the laws, rather than changing them? Where in the constitution does it say he cannot do that?
3. Violation of Amendments I & IV, Freedom of Speech and Illegal Search and Seizure. Concerning wire tapping and eavesdropping on the American people: What is legal under the 4th Amendment and FISA, versus what has been made legal under the USA Patriot Act, and if in conflict, which one should prevail. There was deception on the part of the President in order to get the Patriot Act passed.  Had Congress had the facts, they would not have signed the Patriot Act to begin with, considering the clear violations of priviliges and due process rights offered by the Constitution under the Bill of Rights. The Prosecution presented FBI witness who testified she obtained no search warrants because of the President’s direct order to eavesdrop/wiretap. Defense so far: In time of war President has the right to defend the people’s freedom (Author’s note: At issue: Defend freedom by taking it?) The Act was passed by Congress; witness was almost abandoned as she seemed shaky on her presentation, but a motion to strike her testimony was denied.
4. Violation of the Geneva Convention Articles: Iraqis, specifically those in militias, were taken prisoner by the United States military when the U.S. military acted as an invading force.  Prosecutors presented CIA witness who testified that most Iraqis captured and held had no ties with insurgents and were released. When Iraq was invaded, the Iraqi soldiers were of course supposed to defend their country. They were found by the CIA to be law abiding citizens, not terrorists. The definition of terrorist per G.W. Bush is “a suspected member of Al Quaeda or the Taliban”. For taking prisoners of war on Iraqi soil, the U.S. and military must adhere to Geneva Convention Articles. Defense so far: What is this war called? (War on Terror) Are we at war with the Iraqi people? (That latter question was stricken as the witness was not an authority)

It was obvious to me that it was difficult for everyone to present their statements, to be interrupted with questions, be interrupted with objections about “leading” witnesses, changing the question, listening and voicing objections. Still, they did very well, and as the process went on the students improved their strategies, thought processes and reactions. The Judges had a time period of asking questions of both sides. The prosecution offered ample evidence of detailed case preparation: they knew their stuff. Judges asked for definitions and how each side stood on the issues.

A defense attorney tried to get a witness to say that we didn’t violate Iraqi citizen’s rights because we are at “war with terror,”not with the Iraqi people. When asked for facts she said, “It’s all over the news!” as if that proved it.

Serving as Lead Prosecutors were Michael Hughey, Mike Price and Liz Borsavage. Candace Broady also conducted some direct examination. Lead Defense is Frankie A. DeJesus, along with Matt Harris and Jessica Lance.

Day 2 of the U.S. vs Bush continues Thursday, Nov 29, from 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. at the Morgan Center, Room 308. The day’s agenda includes the presentation of defense witnesses, rebuttal witnesses and closing arguments. This landmark APSU event is open to the public.

Judge Walters asks a question

Photos by Debbie Boen

Political leaders are well aware of the power of stories. They manipulate people by trying to control the story, to force the narrative into the channel they desire. Through modern techniques of psychological manipulation and mind control they have become very good at managing the populace. That has never been more true than today, when the American people seem to have turned over their fate to the Bush regime in Washington.

What is the story used by Bush and his minions to lull the people into mindless obedience? It is the strong daddy protector. In this story, we are innocent, helpless children who are threatened by an evil being that want to destroy us. But the strong daddy protector will not allow this to happen. Where the evil being is all darkness and malevolence, the strong daddy protector is all light and good.

The motivating force in the strong daddy story is fear. As innocent, helpless children, we cannot defend ourselves against the malevolent evil. We can only flee to the beneficent strong daddy for protection. We must choose between the good and the evil, which is portrayed in absolute terms: the evil is all evil and the good is completely good. To doubt the strong daddy in any way is a betrayal of the good and a triumph for evil.

I believe that this is the current story being played out in America today. It helps explain the vitriol poured upon those who dare question the motives or policies of the president. It explains also the seeming paralysis of people, who know something is very wrong, but can’t seem to do anything about it (helpless children). It explains the need for periodic fixes of fear designed to insure continued addiction.

A darker vision, a more sinister tale, has come to haunt me. I feel as though I were living through some of those 50’s and 60′ s sci-fi movies that used to scare and thrill me. The movies where everyone and everything seemed to be normal�, but there was a sense of underlying dread and unreality. I think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers� as alien invaders insidiously usurp the bodies and minds of people. They still look and act the same, but not quite. Or, again, The Village of the Damned�, where the children of the village have been transformed by an unknown, malevolent force into unfeeling automatons.

The sci-fi movies of that era are generally regarded as symbolic representations of the communist menace, which, it was claimed, subverted men’s (and women’s) souls to the will of the party. The individual ceased to exist and the state became all. I remember that era well. Remember reading about how horrible the Soviet Union was, were there was no individual freedom. Where the state spied upon its citizens. Where you were not allowed to speak out against the state. Where people would be taken in the middle of the night and thrown into secret prisons. And tortured. And killed. I remember thinking how terrible this was. I remember being grateful that I lived in a country that celebrated human freedom and expression.

But in the past few years I increasingly feel as if I am trapped in some kind of time warp, where fiction has become reality. People continue to act as though everything is normal, despite some really weird things happening. They talk about freedom, even as the president and the congress shreds the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Gone is the right to security of your own home: the FBI can search your home anytime it wants without having to notify you. Gone is your right to privacy: the president claims the right to wiretap you anytime and any where he pleases. Gone are your legal rights: habeus corpus, bedrock of the law for centuries, is no longer. Gone are your rights of citizenship: the president can declare you an enemy combatant and snatch you off the streets and disappear you, apparently forever. Can someone please tell me when we became the Soviet Union?

Of course, if the picture of present reality as I have painted it is true, I am left with explaining why so few people get it�. This is where we return to the strong daddy story. Most people have bought so strongly into that narrative that they must ignore evidence to the contrary. They want so much to believe in it that they are unable to allow that evidence to penetrate awareness. They mutter the mantra USA! USA! USA!� while continuing to believe in the goodness of their leaders.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear the theme music and Rod Sterling’s voice: You are entering the Twilight Zone!

While America sleeps in the illusion of freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution, America’s gatekeepers (in the form of the the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, Oval Office and even our Congress, all of whom have failed miserably at controlling illegal immigration in the USA) are hard at work finding new, creative, under-the-radar ways to press down ever harder that growing thumb of “security” on the average American citizen.

Too many Americans, asleep at the wheel in their sheltered cocoons of ambivalence, inattentiveness and a faulty assumption that government is always working in their best interest, keep hitting that snooze button as, one by one, their rights are revoked and their private lives invaded by bureaucratic snooping.

Wake up, America. Time to smell the coffee. It’s getting bitter.

As I browsed the web these past few weeks, cruising for news that comes from anywhere, everywhere but Fox and its growing ilk, or corporately directed newscasts, I’ve stumbled across quite a few interesting but troubling stories.

The first story that jumps to mind concerns travel beyond U.S. borders, and the apparent governmental monitoring of all the things we bring aboard a plane: the titles of the book(s) we carry, the kinds of medications we pack, our destinations and frequency of travel, who we travel with and how often we share the same flights (we don’t have to be seat mates, just on the same flights). Snoopy. Spooky.

This data, information we aren’t even aware is being collected, is, according to reports stockpiled for FIFTEEN YEARS by some obscure governmental process kept out of the public eye. Just collecting and collating that data seems to ensure lifetime job security for quite a few people.

The Automated Targetting System (ATS, another of the government’s favored three-letter acronyms) has its eye on you, on your cruise plans, your honeymoon in Venice, your theater trip to London, your trip-of-a-lifetime African safari, that jaunt across the border to Montreal or Vancouver, or that otherwise simple business trip to China or France.

In a North Carolina News Observer article, U.S. Monitors Americans’ Travel (9/22/07), under the guise of helping “border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people,” the government is calculating the finite details of your travels almost to the quality and quantity of the air you breathe en route. ATS has been in place for more than a decade, but in 2002 the monitored skyrocketed. They weren’t very effective in 2001.

In the weeks after Sept. 11, no one in Dallas, Texas, even opened my luggage at customs or bothered to read my customs declaration. Peruvian agents took my friend’s tiny bottle of Sugar Cane rum made in the Amazon jungle before we ever boarded a much delayed flight home, and Peruvian and American agents on either end of our flight both missed the 24 inch long, boldly painted, intricately carved blow gun and the kapok tipped arrows (which look like oversized Q-tips) I bought from a Yagua tribesman somewhere in the jungle. My friend’s was even bigger, brighter and bolder. They never looked at hers either. Or the tribal masks we brought home with us. Our carefully packed souvenirs traveled unencumbered and unquestioned for 6,000 miles. We, the overweight, out-of-breath, exhilarated, and exhausted probably looked too “American tourist” to be of concern. Uh-oh. profiling.

But in fact, the time it takes to monitor the members of a senior center’s art tour bound for Holland would be better spent focusing on other security triggers. Unless there are deeper, darker motives for setting this type of surveillance in place, motives that might include an internal expansion of the program. That dovetails neatly with the ongoing assault on civil liberties.

“Civil liberties advocates say the information preserved raises alarms about the government’s ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting errors, activists said.”

– News Observer NC (9/22/07)

ATS administrators now confronted with public ire and activist scrutiny are backpedaling the details of who, what and where they are directing their observations, which means only that after five years of information gathering their dirty little secrets are under a public microscope now. Does that mean the same surveillance is being applied to domestic travel and we just don’t know the depth of that monitoring yet?

Funny, but I didn’t think my copy of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, Plato’s The Myth of the Caves, the notes in my journal on the refurbished “architecture as art” of bus stations in New England, or my manuscript on Dementia and caregiving merited that kind of scrutiny.

Are they Zeroxing my letters too? Photocopying my Bad Monkey Bush pin or my precious bright blue Don’t Buy War Toys button? My Friend of Dunbar Cave (ohmygod she might be an Al Gore earth-centric environmentalist!) button? Are they counting the number of high blood pressure pills in my cosmetic bag? Checking the color of my lipstick? The brand of shampoo I use? The chemical content of my 3 oz. ‘For Color Treated Hair’ conditioner? Maybe they need to do a strand test to make sure my Hibiscus Revlon Hydrience hair dye doesn’t pose a toxic threat at 35,000 feet? Somehow, I didn’t think the battered, worn-out snow proof baggage I use on my semi-annual commute to a northern college for a labor-intensive week of writing workshops was all that noteworthy.

Oh, wait! I do go to a very progressive, non-traditional, liberal, free-thinking, outside-the-box school near the permeable Canadian border. The one was anti-war in the 60s, gay pride conscious in the 70s, environmentally conscious in the 80s, pro-civil union in the 90s and vegetarian years before it was fashionable.

Maybe my enrollment there makes me, with my ’slightly the worse for wear’ 57-year-old body, asthma, allergies, bad back, and hypertension a dangerous person; after all, my brain still works and I exercise it regularly by reading, asking questions and paying attention. Maybe, though, I won’t be allowed to fly because I have the ability to get to my gate on time and read the seat numbers without assistance.

On a deeper, more serious level, this kind of governmental scrutiny is akin to intellectual rape, a violation of personal privacy, an intrusion taken to the extreme that should not be tolerated by any of us. And yes, I am taking it personally. So should all of you.

There’s more, though. I all but laughed at the lunatic concept presented in this policy that says two people traveling together once is coincidence; two people traveling on the same flight twice constitutes a “relationship” and such relationships raise questions. Okay, commuters. Each needs a separate flight between JFK and DC, or Boston and New York, or San Francisco to LA for those Monday through Friday commutes to escape the “pairing.” Heaven forbid you should be on the same flight with the same group of people more than once. Husbands and wives — start counting the vacations you take together. You seniors from the local COA running off to Vegas and the slot machines a couple of times a year — you are a conspiracy in the making. You may end up on a no fly list. “What plays in Vegas” may stay in Vegas, but how you get there could become a matter of public record for Homeland Security.

Officials quoted in these stories say that such tracking led in part to the connections of the 9-11 terrorists. Threads in a global terrorist conspiracy. But billions of records are being collected, uploaded and filed into semi-obscurity in a governmental cyber warehouse of infinite proportions.

Remember the visual punch (photo, above) of the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark? The most powerful religious artifact in the world, packed in a wooden crate, rolling down a city of floor to ceiling crates in a governmental warehouse. The new ATS warehouse is configured in cyberspace, but our records are all alive and well there. Somewhere.
The majority of these records reflect ordinary people, with ordinary lives: your daughter and her friends flying off to college, grandma’s winter in Florida, dad’s monthly meetings in Chicago, a young couple’s romantic honeymoon in Venice, the annual family trip to Disneyland. The majority of these records reflect ordinary people, whose expectations as defined by the Bill of Rights are being undermined by a growing number of invasive, intrusive forays into their personal lives.

Yes, there is a pattern and profile to terrorism, but it is not in the luggage, the handbags, the briefcases, the journals, or the books of the average American traveler.

Just in time for banned books week I have an update on the boycott I called for last November of the Customs House Museum. I became offended when Executive Director Ned Couch used his personal judgment that an artist’s exhibit might offend some museum patrons as justification for requiring the artist to remove portions of it, all done in the name of protecting community sensibilities.

These same justifications have been used throughout history to justify the suppression of peoples freedom of speech, press, religion, and association. Our founding fathers found this so reprehensible that they specifically prohibited the government of this country from engaging in those very actives in the very first amendment to our Constitution. The only requirement for censorship is that someone in a position of power disagrees with something someone else was doing, then uses their position and authority to stop them, and that the public acquiesce.

The executive director at the time, Ned Couch, has announced he is stepping down. So today I am ending the boycott called 10 months ago. Don’t get me wrong; I seriously doubt that my boycott is behind his imminent departure, but in the aftermath of his censorship I asked that he leave, and leave he has. You take your victories where you can find them.

The primary result of all this is that you can expect to see greater and more detailed coverage of future Museum events, exhibitions, news, and activities very soon on Clarksville Online!

To learn more

Check out While America Sleeps: Censorship masked as ‘Chapel Library Project’, APSU screens Hollywood Librarian, and our upcoming articles, Banned Books: Have you read one? and Book Burning: Fueling flames of censorship.

While America Sleeps is “an occasional column” and commentary on the state of Civil Liberties in America.

I ‘ve been following the saga of the removal, regulation and control of access to books by people in prison. Religiously oriented books in particular.

I read with great interest a New York Times commentary by Laurie Goodstein on the systematic purging of books on faith from prison bookshelves by chaplains under the Standardized Chapel Library Project. Those same chaplains are now being asked to review tome by tome any and every requested book before it “might” be returned to the shelves for access by inmates. As if chaplains have nothing else to do but serve as literary screeners (a.k.a. censors) for the prison system.

According to Goodstein, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said her agency was responding to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department that recommended a course of action for prisons to keep them from becoming:

“… recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.

“Ms. Billingsley said, “We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts.”

– Laurie Goodstein, NYT (9/10/07)

The banned books ripped from prison libraries included nine works by acclaimed author C.S. Lewis, creator of the Chronicles of Narnia series, an array of Islamic and other non-Christian texts, a high number of Jewish faith-based texts, but none by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Catholic Cardinal Avery Dulles, or the influential Pastor Robert H. Schuller.

Prison chaplains routinely review incoming texts for violence but have questioned both the extensive removal of religiously-oriented books that has left many bookshelves almost bare. Chaplains have been burdened with the complex and time-consuming task of reading and reviewing requested books prior to making them available to prisoners.

“There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.”

– Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship

The government maintained that the new rules don’t entirely clear the shelves of prison chapel libraries, and a U.S. Attorney Brian Feldman told U.S. District Court Laura Taylor Swain that prison libraries limited the number of book for each religion under the new rules, and that officials would could increase the numbers “after choosing a new list of permitted books.” (USA Today/AP)

The target in this post 9-11 mindset is obviously Islamic-oriented studies and potential links to terrorism, as admitted by Ms. Billingsley. But how long will it be before this extremist action that violates the freedom of religion, the right to pursue religious study regardless of denomination is vectored into other venues: our libraries, our schools?

This action is not just about books in prisons with captive audiences. It’s much bigger than that.

This purge of the tools of knowledge recalls the outrage that erupted several years ago when our government walked over the Bill of Rights in its attempt to access and track records of the library books we read. Librarians were irate, the half of America that stayed awake was outraged, and the half of America still asleep didn’t seem to know or care. All it did for me was make me immediately find the most outrageous books on the shelves and check them out. This kind of intrusive monitoring is a precursor to expansive censorship and worse, and leaves us no better off than the countries we criticize for their lack of “democracy” and democratic principles.

I view the Chapel Library Project (the prison book bill, as I call it) as another example of our government’s “guerrilla warfare” on the Bill of Rights.

As for me, if someone or some agency bans a book, I will go out of my way to read it just to find out what it is they don’t want me to know. I might not have been interested in it before, but they have now peaked my curiosity. Hey, you three-letter agency guys and gals: there’s a lesson in there — the same one Congress got a dose of by censuring MoveOn.Org last week.

Lessons to be learned …

In the famous H.G. Wells novel, The Time Machine, his Time Traveler whirls into a future in which the surface dwellers have devolved into a simple, illiterate people, the Eloi, with a sub culture of Morlocks who control, prey upon and cannibalize them. No rights or liberties. Just a nurtured existence at the whim and convenience of the powerful. It was allowed to happen to the extreme, over time, by those who did not pay attention. Predator and Prey.

“The Utopian existence of the Eloi turns out to be deceptive. The Traveler soon discovers that the class structure of his own time has in fact persisted, and the human race has diverged into two branches. The wealthy, leisure classes appear to have devolved into the ineffectual, not very bright Eloi he has already seen; but the down-trodden working classes have evolved into the bestial Morlocks, cannibal hominids resembling human spiders, who toil underground maintaining the machinery that keep the Eloi – their flocks – docile and plentiful. Both species, having adapted to their routines, are of distinctly sub-human intelligence.”

– Wikipedia

In the film version, Wells’ Time Traveler (Rod Taylor, right, in the 1960 film version) is confronted with the absence of information: no media, no awareness, just shelves of books that crumble to the touch and an odd holographic record of the decline of intellectual civilization. The Time Traveler returns home, collects a few items, including three books, and returns to this horrifying future with the implication of effecting change. Which books did he bring? Which would you choose for such a journey? Will they still be around when you need them?

Examining the once tightly packed shelf, the Time Traveler’s friends try to learn which books journeyed into the future.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For those interested in the issue of censorship and the banning of books, Austin Peay State University is among 87 U.S. and Canadian locations that will screen the documentary, The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film. The film can be seen on Sunday, September 30, at 6 p.m. and Monday, October 1, at 4 p.m. at the Morgan University Center (Room 303). The screening coincides with the celebration of Banned Books Week and include scenes of the 1930s burning of John Steinbeck’s books, discussion of the Patriot Act and an interview with acclaimed author Ray Bradbury.

But Iraq is not about Vietnam, and not really about September 11th; that was just the excuse that triggered a rush to war in oil-rich country.

Here’s the letter:

“Wow, did you really write that in the Clarksville Voice? If so, you really should be ashamed of yourself, and consider renouncing your American Citizenship (since you seem to be so angry and ashamed of the actions we have taken to prevent another attack) and go live among those “innocents being slaughtered” you so fondly speak of.

“I personally remember everything about that awful Tuesday morning six years ago. I was awake, but still in bed in my apartment in Nashville, TN; when one of my friends and my Dad called nearly simultaneously to alert me about this terrible “accident” at the World Trade Center. I immediately turned on Fox News and within seconds, the second plane hit the other tower, then news of the Pentagon being attacked, and then ANOTHER plane going down en route to the White House.

“This was a truly horrifying day, I wanted nothing more than to hunt down and kill those responsible for these travesties, and to this day I still do; but today, it seems, most people have a different sentiment about things.”

“For the past few days I have been trying to find a couple of random little items, like an American flag tie, or even just a lapel pin that I could wear today to honor those who were murdered by cowards, and those who have died avenging them and our nation, and guess what; at the stores I have gone to, upon asking where I might find these “commonplace” items, I am told “Oh, fourth of July is long passed, sorry.

“I hate to use bad language in a topic as near and dear to my heart, but it made me [expletive] sick. Forget about the fact I could find all the merchandise my heart desires if I wanted to display my Mexican pride, but no Stars and Stripes anything?

“It has become politically incorrect to be patriotic, no, to even care about your country and those who were murdered by terrorists, and those who died hunting down said terrorists.

“You are a published writer in what I have discerned to be an overtly liberal publication in the Clarksville (where I dunno, the 101st Airborne Division live) and Middle Tennessee area. Granted, I as a former Rakkasan [187th Airborne] and registered Republican have many, many qualms with the way Ol’ Shrub has mismanaged the country and the war, but let’s digress for a moment as to why we’re here: September 11, 2001.Yeah, it was supposed to be just an ordinary workday; so was December 7, 1941.

“To suggest that we honor those murdered by these cowards and our brave servicemen and women who died by throwing in the towel as it might be is shameful and; for lack of better words, wrong. Would I be out of line to ask if you have, (or had) any loved ones who have died as a result of the bombings (and no; I am not talking about your “tens of thousands of innocents slaughtered [in Iraq] every day)? Well I haven’t, but as a former soldier, I know that having Americans back home bashing me and my efforts in the manner in which you do certainly doesn’t make being scared, away from home, and fighting the forces of evil, any easier.

“I apologize for being so blunt, but grow up lady. Neville Chamberlain called for peace and we know how that all ended up, right? Six million dead Jews. Think about it before spewing your Anti-American rhetoric and hate.”

– Zane

First of all, we are Clarksville Online, not Clarksville Voice. And by the way, I am quite grown up. I did that growing up outside a military base in New England, where I managed to acrue no less than 17 friends on the Vietnam wall in DC. And there is nothing more hateful than war. It’s peace that’s hard.

I am familiar with war, too familiar with counting names of dead friends killed in action and weeping alongside their families. I also spent 27 years taking care of my elderly uncle; I was holding him when he died from the longterm effects of war (he was a surviving POW of WWII, paid back with a lifetime of PTSD, skin disorders from malnutrition, and too many mental and physical issues to list here).

When I wasn’t writing about all kinds of other things for a living (like murders, drunk driving victims, drug dealers, missing children and pedophiles, corrupt politicians) I spent another decade working on issues of homelessness and substance abuse with both low income women and with many men who happened to be homeless, addicted or mentally ill Vietnam vets irrevocably damaged by that earlier unwinnable war. I am quite familiar with the after effects of war (which are only belatedly and insufficiently being addressed by the Bush administration).

If we want to prevent another Sept. 11-type attack, let’s start by trying to secure our own borders and ports, stamp down hard on illegal immigration (I have no problems with legal immigration; I come from immigrant stock myself), and get Bin Laden. He’s apparently not in Iraq. If I am ashamed of anything, it is of a governmental structure so riddled with ineptitude that each day brings a new report of incompetence and wast, and evidence of amazing arrogance that has ultimately toyed with the lives of all our troops and their families.

So for now, yes, I am a dissenting American (one of many, with 73% of American having serious issues with sustaining this war according to post-presidential speech polls). I am not the only dissenter; I am not standing alone.

As for the victims, those “innocents being slaughtered,” there is little difference between the burned child running down the road in that famous Vietnam era photograph (left) and the little boy, Youssif (below, right) torched and horribly burned in Iraq and now receiving medical care here.

Two helpless victims of two pointless wars. Unconscionable horror inflicted on innocents, and it is the innocents who are usually, inevitably caught in the crossfire. Our 9-11 victims were also innocents, caught in the cross fire of fanatical governmental and religious hatred. These children did not fly a plane into the towers.

I have every respect for the troops stationed overseas, and their families at home. They suffer on many levels, all bearing the emotional scars of wartime horrors and familial separation.

Two years into this conflict (back in 2005), as I sat in a Fort Campbell church with friends from the base on Holy Saturday, I found myself exchanging the sign of peace with a soldier I didn’t know. He was alone, and he took my hand in peace, and didn’t let go. So I sat down next to him, and continued to hold the part of his hand what was not raw wounded flesh. I held this hand of a soldier I didn’t even know, this soldier whose arms were solid burns lightly bandaged, who had gouging shrapnel scars all over the parts of his that were shaved to the skin, whose leg was held together by a marvel of metal engineering with large pins anchoring this steel frame to his bones.

Our country was founded by dissenters, by people shedding the yoke of government they didn’t want or respect. Remember the Boston Tea Party? Or the American Revolution? And a little thing called the Bill of Rights (that little piece of paper that guaranteed our civil liberties including the right to dissent, the bill that’s been trampled by Bush’s government?).

This is government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” and I have no problem with defending ourselves and our people. But the facts are (and it has been admitted) that “we the people” were misled and outright lied to about Iraq and its relevance to September 11; our troops were sent to Iraq by an administration that did not take the time to realistically think through why they were going there (or at least, what they would tell the American people about why they were going there), what the objectives were, and how they planned to accomplish that objective — and get out. General Petraeus this week was candid about what needed to happen to win the war, and equally candid about the possibility of not being able to win this war. And many Americans, including an increasing number of legislators, hold the belief that this was the wrong war to fight and that no more lives — including yours — should be sacrificed on this particular altar.

Remember that long after Americans were grounded around the world, it was George Bush’s people who let so many members of the Bin Laden family and their money leave the country in chartered jets before they could be questioned (detaining them was not even an issue). If you want to vent anger over Sept. 11, there’s a good place to start. It’s a long way from the ending, but it is a starting point, though it may not help us catch him now.

In the meantime, I am one of many citizens who are outraged not just over the war but the web of events and actions surrounding the war that will ultimately impact every American through the next generation: the war wounds, mental and physical, the unaddressed and poorly acknowledged health impacts of Sept. 11 on New Yorkers and the rescuers from everywhere, the horrific fiscal cost that our even our grandchildren will be paying off, and the daily placement of our cherished civil liberties on the chopping block.

When our soldiers come home and need assistance, I’ll probably be one of the people helping them, sooner or later, through one of the several community programs I volunteer for. If you stay in this war long enough, I, or someone just like me, may be the one helping you as well. That what’s we peace-mongers do.

I feel deeply for all who lost their lives, and their families, on September 11. The Iraq War is not buying them justice or atonement or revenge; it is just creating more victims. Not just in Iraq. Heck, take some that war funding and pay the emerging and escalating health care costs of the survivors and emergency workers.

I would also recommend that people try watching something other than Fox News’ one-dimensional, blatantly biased broadcasting. British, French, Italian, Asian and even Chilean broadcasts can add new dimensions to our views on the war by allowing us to see it from a global perspective, and thus reveal how our country is viewed by the other nations of the world.

Finally, I have no trouble finding patriotic memorabilia — it’s everywhere. Twin Tower pins, magnetic yellow ribbons saying “We Love Our Troops”, American flags, copies of the Bill of Rights, all proudly sitting right along side my Impeach Bush bumper stickers.