According to the FBI, 613,986 Americans were arrested in 2002 for mere possession of marijuana. Nathaniel Heatwole faces up to 10 years in prison for demonstrating how porous airport security remains. The National Park Service has blockaded an Alaska family in an attempt to grab their land.
All those who pray for some free country to lead the planet into libertopia (at gunpoint, if necessary) should at least pick a free country to do the leading.
Leave it to our favorite Canuck to look on the bright side of car bombings and missile attacks: See, all the terrorism in Iraq is good, cos it’ll teach the Arabs to hate terrorism.
Just heard a Gen. McInerney on Fox News say that the U.S. has accomplished its primary goal in Iraq, that of ensuring the Iraqi citizens’ Four Freedoms. He couldn’t quite remember what those are, however, so he came up with “freedom of government, freedom of the person, freedom of education, and freedom of communication.” What, no freedom from secondhand smoke?
In McLaughlin Group alumni news, Pat Buchanan sticks up for Gen. Boykin on rather dubious “takes fire to fight fire” grounds. Eerily similar to last Wednesday’s townhall.com essay by Tony Blankley, right down to the word “splendid.” Some sort of Halloween prank brewing?
Today’s article by Karen Kwiatkowski at LewRockwell.com is an interesting take on the way to defeat the neocons – and generally, anyone who relies on the argument of force, rather than the force of argument.
Now, I’m a fan of cultural history, which is relevant because art often reflects the undercurrents of society. So Col. Kwiatkowski’s column reminded me of an episode of a delightfully subversive SF show called Babylon 5 (starring Yugoslav actress Mira Furlan, among others) from a few years back. At one point, an Earth officer – who had rebelled against the government that turned fascist using a terrorist attack as an excuse – is captured and interrogated by the fascists.
The entire episode takes place in his cell, where the interrogator/torturer tries to break Captain Sheridan in a cold, calculated manner – and keeps failing.
At one point he asks the drugged, starved, poisoned, beaten, and utterly powerless prisoner, mocking his devotion to the truth:
“Can you win?”
Sheridan replies: “Every time I say ‘No’.”
That’s really all it takes. They never break him.
And they lose
Yes, according to The Scotsman, but not for opposing the war on Iraq or giving Labour headaches. Then why? For lending himself so freely to the warmongers’ cast of straw men:
There’s the TV footage of him praising Saddam Hussein for his indefatigability, which the Iraqi dictator tended to express by having people shot.
There were his calls during the war for British troops to disobey orders.
And there was his call for Arabs to fight British soldiers.
He would have had much more credibility and been a much stronger advocate for finding out the truth about the Iraq war if he had kept his mouth shut at crucial moments.
Take heed, International A.N.S.W.E.R.
