
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
-Harry S. Truman
This week the traitors in Washington, also known as the U.S. Senate, sold out the Constitution again. Cowed by NeoCon scare tactics, with their pockets stuffed with wads of cash bribes campaign contributions from SPRINT, VERIZON and AT&T, the Senate passed FISA legislation undermining your Fourth Amendment right not to be subject to unwarranted search and/or seizure.
This is not a “compromise,” as some in Congress would have us believe. The only things they compromised are your personal privacy and your freedom.

(Check out the Billboard Liberation Front!)
The FISA Amendments Act allows for mass, untargeted and warrantless surveillance of all communications coming into and out of the United States. As an extra-special kick in the shorts, it hands immunity to telecommunication companies for their role in domestic spying. This means YOUR phone calls can be tapped and emails read for practically no reason at all, and there’s no chance to learn how the telecoms invaded your privacy after the fact.
Mark my words: Warrantless wiretapping is ALREADY being used to stifle dissent, blackmail politicians and destroy careers for partisan political purposes. And if you don’t think they’re reading your emails, and creating a comprehensive profile on you based upon what you write about yourself on your MySpace and Facebook pages, and especially your Plaxo profile, you have another thing coming. Are you a “Peace Mom?” Ever been to an anti-war or anti-globalization rally? There is an FBI case file on you.
In the days leading up to the House and Senate votes on the FISA bill the howling from American patriots and civil rights activists was louder than it had been in years. The Senators’ phones were ringing off the hook. Unfortunately, it was too late: The American public, Boobus Americanus, has remained parked on it’s sofa, remote in one hand and a soda in the other, for SO LONG, that once it occurred to the public that they were being spied upon Soviet-style it was too late to do anything about it. Congress had already been bought off by a bunch of paranoid, control freak plutocrats OVER A PERIOD OF DECADES, chipping away at the Constitution bit by little bit with laws and Executive Orders. Regardless, Boobus Americanus either stayed home on voting day or kept on electing it’s congresscritters over and over and over again.

Conservatives especially HATE the ACLU, turning the acronym into a synonym for traitor. What an asinine reversal. Sure the ACLU chooses some weird cases to fight, but they’re fighting on Constitutional principle, and they are doing it for YOUR SAKE. You snooze, you lose, folks. So NOW you care?

Boobus Americanus
(by Ed Griffin)
It’s more than mortal man can bear.
Those terrorists are everywhere:
on land and sea and in the air.
Network TV bill of fare
daily warns us to prepare
for bugs and bombs and poison air
and other things enough to scare
the bravest man to deep despair.

They hate our liberty, or so we’re told,
our way of life so uncontrolled,
our rich, our poor, our young, our old.
I guess their hatred just takes hold
and burrows in and makes them bold
enough to kill and die and spend their gold
and set in motion plans untold
to get us ALL . . . or so we’re told.

Seems strange to me they don’t resent
the other guys who represent
a way of life with free consent
or those who are benevolent.
The only ones they seem intent
to devastate to great extent
are those who’s aero-planes were sent
to bomb their homes with such torment.

Never mind, the war will stay.
We’re going to fight this all the way.
But there’s a price we have to pay
to keep the enemy at bay.
Let our leaders take away
our lives and liberty TODAY,
and then our fears will go away
that they’ll be lost some future day.

My phone is tapped. My mail is read.
They know the thoughts inside my head.
The money I deposited
is now reported to the Fed.
They chip my hand, dispense my bread.
I think they watch me go to bed.
I don’t object. I’m glad instead
to be controlled until I’m dead.

CHORUS
And so I very happily
let them take my liberty.
No matter what they do to me,
it’s all for my security.
You see, you see, you see?
I’m just as glad as I can be
to let them take my liberty.
No matter what they do to me,
it’s all for my security.

(Source: I thought this last image was from an article in Rolling Stone called “Fear Factor”), but I went back and it’s not there)

Surely she has her bitchy and grand Miss Piggy moments, having pretty much nailed the seventh and most deadly sin VANITY. However, depending on the time of the month she is also a female version of either Gonzo or Beaker: Adorably weird and introspective, or a babbling freakout mess, usually over world events she can do absolutely nothing about.

So many midpoints, so little patience. I’m half way through my summer classes: Midterm tests and papers are complete, and I’m gearing up final tests and papers. I will never take TWO summer classes at the same time again! By August I shall be free, but for now I don’t have much time for anything except homework.
I was greeted by a stiffie this morning. Unfortunately it was NOT the kind I like. So, now that I’ve made it through the day, Advil or margarita? 

















I’ve discovered something curious: I am no longer
I’m from Minnesota, where socialism and patriotism go hand in hand. Hell, Minnesota is swarming with towheaded Nordic socialists. We invented the indoor shopping mall, Target and the HMO for Chrissake. We’re all about efficient life design for the common folk.We drive sensible cars and dig each other out of the snow and ice every winter. Damn it, it’s COLD in Minnesota; it’s in our best survival interest to be socialists.






















