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Bush's war on Americans, aided and abetted by Yoo, wanted our free speech rights, and our bodies

Bush wanted us all trapped like rats (USDA photo)

 

 

 

One evening last August, I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, a sicker feeling even than watching our retirement funds slim down almost to the point of starvation. I was terrified that George W. Bush would never leave office, and if he did, Mr. McCain, if elected, would be every bit as unethical, or worse. I wanted to get on the first plane out and seek asylum somewhere. Nothing my husband did or said could convince me that I was not in mortal danger just for being a journalist, and one who had, moreover, criticized Bush, with byline, on the Internet.

 

I decided I would wait until November 5; if things went well, I would stay. If things didn’t go well…I have friends in Canada, Ireland and Great Britain who would probably put me up for a while. And they all knew I might ask their assistance. Even my ex-husband, who is a dual British-US citizen. It felt so odd, so crazy. But I knew it was not. Generally speaking, I will stand my ground over just about anything, and not flee. But this was too big for me. It was gargantuan.

 

Except for reading the news for the previous seven years, I had nothing concrete on which to base my terror. But I knew—the way a mother sometimes knows that her child is hurting even when the child is not at home—that there was something terribly, terribly wrong with the American government. I knew that it was not protecting its people, and certainly not its critics. I suspected it would actively harm its critics. I knew that it was not a big leap from marking everything SECRET to snatching people off the street, like so many Columbian drug lords would do. Or the KGB. Perhaps it was because I had read of Naomi Wolfe’s trials and tribulations at the hands of Homeland Security that I began to feel that way. Of course, she had done more to expose the Bush administration than I ever dreamed of. But still.

 

But just now, when I read the Newsweek article, I understood. Ms. Wolfe’s problems may have been part of the source of my terror. But I think it more likely that it was just the subtext under all of American life under Bush that gave rise to my significant weltschmertz, and beyond that, my personal terror. Newsweek, not even a notably liberal publication, has just reported:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

 

John Yoo, no more than a hireling of the Attorney General, wrote that “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” according to Newsweek. Yoo is now, unaccountably, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Aside from the fact that he has no respect for the Constitution and its intent, he is also, as far as I can see, way too belligerent to be a member of anything named Justice Department.

 

I suspect that my terror was picked up osmotically, partly because of where I live. I read newspapers and the Internet. I interact with people and hear and see their responses to what’s going on around them. I think the Bush mindset (if you will excuse that contradiction in terms) escaped Foggy Bottom like a germ, wafting into hearts and minds until those of us who had spoken against the deadly germ of an impending imperial presidency felt fear—fear that we would be eradicated, or possibly frozen like so many lab specimens awaiting later use or disposal. Either way, for a journalist, that is death.

 

I’m only surprised that it took so long for the infection to manifest itself as chills, night terrors, a desire to flee, and revulsion at my country, or at least, at what it had become. As it turns out, Newsweek noted today, as early as 2001, according to Kate Martin, director for the Center for National Security Studies in DC, Yoo’s work was part of a Bush administration attempt to construct a legal framework to allow the imposition of martial law.

 

Holy cow. Martial law. Shades of Soviet Russia. And now the Republicans are trying to convince us that the Democrats are commies?!? Self-involved blowhards and bimbos like Rush and Coulter may believe Democrats are commie-like, but then, they aren’t good at looking in the mirror. If they did, they might find the true locus of totalitarianism in the U.S.

 

One doesn't really need to point out that there are a few ethical issues to examine here, does one?

 

The alternative websites had been claiming all along that Bush meant to impose martial law before he left office. I had read all that, early in the summer. But one doesn’t want to get squirrelly about these things. One doesn’t want to be counted with the goofballs wearing aluminum foil hats so satellites can’t pick them up. One wants to be responsible and at least somewhat trusting, even if the prerequisite for “journalist” is skeptic. And one is a fool to be that way, at least when one is living in a nation headed by a man:

I guess that about covers it. If I ever see such a person as head of state again, I’ll seek asylum elsewhere. I won’t wait. I won’t be a fool again. I do hope this nation is done with bullyboys who would play war games with our lives and try to live out their pipe dreams of imperial glory on our ignorance.