The State of Our Nation

I've been not blogging for a while, if anybody's noticed, but I aim to be more regular, and more focused. Yes, that's it, a tighter, better blog!!!

Tonight, let's talk about the state of our nation. You may have seen this photo of the Blackwater T-shirted DEA agent during a big medical marijuana bust. And the recent spate of marijuana smuggling arrests trumpeted by the DEA/Justice Department.

Well, I'm sure we're all sleeping better at night knowing that those medical marijuana people and all those dopers are getting busted and harassed for their evil ways, even while that devil Osama bin Laden and his al Queada creation remains thriving in AfghaniPakistan. Right? You all sleep better knowing that, don't you? What, you don't? Well, anyway, if that weren't troublesome enough, I just read this wonderful story about the Mayor of Berwyn Heights adventures with the Marijuana Police. [My bolds]

Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package. ...[snippage]...

Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High said Wednesday that Calvo and his family were "most likely ... innocent victims," but he would not rule out their involvement, and he defended the way the raid was conducted. He and other officials did not apologize for killing the dogs, saying the officers felt threatened.

But this line says it all: His [the Mayors] wife spoke through tears as she described an encounter with a girl who used to see the couple walking their dogs.

"She gave me a big hug and she said, `If the police shot your dogs dead and did this to you, how can I trust them?'"

Look. There are several things wrong with these stories. Let's start with the behavior of the police. Yes, we all know they're heroes and put their lives on the line for us, but do they have to treat people and their effects with such disregard? After all, let's not forget, there is first and foremost, a presumption of innocence, regardless of appearances; secondly, the 4th amendment is pretty clear: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Where's the warrant or the reasonable searches, in both of these cases? Does this picture seem reasonable to you?

Pot shouldn't even be illegal, it's a stupid and ridiculous vestige of prohibition, racism (them colored musicians were well known to smoke the stuff and lure impressionable white kids into the evils of Reefer Madness, don't forget), and special interests-cotton, corn, and paper products corporations that didn't want competition from the easy growing weed (good fibers for paper, clothing, seeds for animal feed, vegetable oil etc), hallucinogenic or otherwise.

So instead of going easy on pot growers, instead of mitigating the criminality of the pot industry, we get storm trooper tactics, especially now as Bushco tries to terrorize Americans on general principal I guess as a way of keeping the fear factor going regardless of the source or targets or intents; tension just for the sake of increasing pressure on the American Public.

So I ask you, faithful readers, how can this be, whatever the particulars, how can this be acceptable in America? What has happened to this country of rugged individualists; bold entrepreneurs; no nonsense, hard working, unimpeachable Our Town Americans; that this crap is tolerated, and not just tolerated, but unremarked upon by our media and our leaders?

Is the State of Our Nation one of thuggery, of institutional violence, of the Not Very Great At All Generation? Is that what we have become? And if so, how did we get this way? When did it start, and who started it, and where are these people because I'd like to have them pay a price for what they have wrought. And I don't mean beating them up and inflicting revenge on them, either.

I think we know who I'm talking about, but I'll spell it out. G-O-P. C-o-n-s-e-r-v-a-t-i-v-e-s. I say this not as a blanket condemnation of all GOPpes and Conservatives, but the generation that was started forming during the days of Richard Nixon, all the Post Goldwater 1964 conservatives who just have so much hate in their hearts, all those charming young republicans like Karl Rove and Lee Atwater and the true believers like G Gordon Liddy, the self aggrandizing users like Gingrich and DeLay, the weak cowards like Jean Schmidt and Dennis Hastert and James Sensenbrenner and Yoo and Gonzo and the Kagens, oh I could go on.

They perpetuate the fear and the thuggery, they revel in the casual indifference America seems to have for these outrages, like the recent ICE raids in Iowa, and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that these people are destroying my country, my world, my environment, my life.

What we do about it is uncertain. It's daunting, it's huge, it may be insurmontable. In which case the planet dies as we know it. Humanity gets tossed on the oil patch of evolution, and it won't take that long to happen. By the end of this century, kiddies. But it may be preventable, it may be subject to change, or at least some mitigation. And that won't happen with any, and I mean ANY, Republicans pulling the levers of power.

So think of this as my rambling and unequivical endorsement of every Democratis candidate for every electable political office. Progressive Democrats are much preferred, but I will take any Dem over any Gopper every time. So put that in your bong and smoke it.