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i understand (but do not agree with) the arguments that you have put forward, mojo, but i confess that i am confused by the underlying position you work from.
i assume that you do not feel that the category of terrorist could at any point be turned on yourself or anyone close to you: which i assume means that you are not yourself a member of any of the groups that bushworld has designated (in pragmatic terms) a priori "suspect" not are connected to anyone who is--i can assure you that if your situation were otherwise, you would view this kind of move askance.
second, you seem to have a touching faith in the bush administration itself--that it is competent, that it is acting in the context of a "war on terror" and not simply using it as a pretext--i am myself totally unconvinced about the question of basic competence relative to this administration, and am not sure about motive. but i am predisposed to not trust george w bush. you do not lie to a country about war and then expect people to trust you. (no need for a rehash of arguments about the legitimacy of this absurd adventure in iraq: if you support it, you will not convince me to follow your lead--so this is little more than an indication of fundamental divergences of views)
i think this administration is dangerously fond of authoritarian-style actions. to do not think them authoritarian as yet--but i think the tendencies are evident and that they do not require a paranoia to be noted. again, check out the ways in which states of emergency have been used in the past to gut basic freedoms from the inside. usage of it is the primary legal avenue through which such regimes have emerged from within pseudo-democratic context like the american.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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