Minority Report is not a myth!

The film "Minority Report" is a beautiful piece of science fiction that captures a possible future that looks more and more possible, given the current climate in America today. We have the Homeland Security Act, which weakens the Bill of Rights considerably, markedly, and with the fear and paranoia the administration is cultivating, indeed, that the GOP will probably use for the next presidential election (or two) it's easy to imagine that law enforcement agencies will be given broad sanctions allowing greater invasive permissions without the process of vetting through a judge. In other words, no need for a warrant of any type to arrest a person or to delve into a person's private life. Already the FBI can pick through your life without your knowledge and without the consent of a judge, all that's required is documentation written by a superior FBI agent and filed in a cabinet in D.C. to allow this type of intrusive exploration without cause.

Don't believe me. Check it out. Read the Homeland Security Act: Version II which Bush signed into law some months ago.

Welcome to the future, where our lives are open books and any properly authorized agent of the government can alter facts about you to make it appear that you're a threat to national security. Scary? I hope so, because without scrutiny we're heading in that direction. And scrutiny is, as we all know, lacking for the most part. Even the press has been cowed by this administration and the politicians and their bosses (corporate monsters) are getting better and better at perfecting scenarios geared to foment panic and mindless fear among the populace, which, in turn, creates the perfect climate for pushing through laws that will/could completely erode the Bill of Rights as we know it today.

Minority Report is not just a great film. It's a vision of the future ala Phillip K. Dick (an unusual writer and human being, for certain) that represents an imminent bearing of fact. But you probably don't want to think about such things, so long as you're getting that $2 million bonus and purchasing your college-age daughter that new Lexus, right?

So let's all sit back, relax, and while our rights are being taken away one by one by one, keep our eyes and mouths shut. I imagine the government will find a drug they can slip into the water system of some small town in Idaho for a start that will put the population into a stuporous state, rendering them all amendable to sub-conscious suggestions, like "your president loves you and has your best interest at heart and can do no wrong. Your president is infallible and you trust him explicitly and completely." Hmmmm. Sounds good if you'd like to live in a world of manufactured fantasy (or nightmare, as I see it).

Creativity is a river that flows through the human spirit — through you and me and them — and should be allowed to flow unfettered by censorship, fear or religious ideology!

I'm sick of the phony spiritualists and evangelicals who claim domain over God through their special brand of faith. These people are blinded by their own ideological mindsets. People, I guess, must have to believe in some sort of construct that allows them to wrap their minds around concepts that have no limits or boundaries, e.g. God, infinity, creation, miracles. But they go out of bounds and become that which they despise if they allow their ideology to subsume their reason. We've eaten from the tree of knowledge, that cannot be changed. What can be changed is our perspectives, our points of view and attitudes toward others.

Too often religious zeal becomes a rallying cry for carnage and death; witness the jihad against all things American; witness the anger and rage that spews from so-called Christians who espouse the eradication of "queers" and/or people who don't conform to their belief systems. It's a mess and one that leads only to pain and sorrow.

I would rather go through life without religion blinding me to the reality that is God, than have all the support in the world from people who're willing to destroy others in God's name.

So f#!* you, all you wolves in sheep's clothing who chant gleefully at executions; all you fools who bow down to icons that represent separation and disunity. Wars, perhaps, are inevitable for myriad reasons, though I wonder if there's ever been a just war. Maybe somewhere inside the madness that is war a greater is guiding the hearts of some warriors; perhaps the better lights of our existence are fueled by some wars. But is this war in Iraq really comparable to World War II, where a tyrannical madman threatened the stability of ALL nations and, specifically, the lives of ALL Jews?

Hitler probably needed killing; Saddam Hussein probably needs killing; but is his life worth that of the thousands of non-combatants who're paying the ultimate price for a righteous goal? I don't know.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

The war in Iraq is a sack of s@#!

Yea, the Iraqi celebratory brigade marches onward into the sunset as more military personnel (that's people, in case you were wondering) get maimed and killed, and for what? To catapult G.W. into the history books? What kind of lunacy are we, as a nation, willing to accept from our government? Apparently any kind at all. Including the useless slaughter of thousands of our brave soldiers, not to mention the innocent Iraqi bystanders who get caught in the crossfire.

Useless? Hell yes! What are we doing trying to mold Iraq into a mirror-image of the United States — at least to the degree that Iraqis can understand the principles of democracy — which, I fear, is far short of our own feeble grasp on the concept of government FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE.

I'm appalled that half the electorate actually buys the bulls@!* our nitwit president spews, and even more disgusted with the news media in Washington, D.C. A bunch of dimwitted chowder-heads who haven't a clue about ANYTHING realistic or reasonable, but who are experts at sucking up to the administration and spreading the dung they're spoon-fed over the land. Moronic penal-farm growers and harvesters.

And the harvest? Well, we're seeing it everyday as the body count rises and Rumsfeld and his ilk keep stoking the fires of fear and hatred — much the same as our real enemies. And whatever happened to Osama bin Laden anyway? When's the last time G.W. (Dubya, as Trudeau likes to say) even mentioned that mass murderer's name, let alone refer to any effort at apprehending him? And why isn't the media, that bastion of hard-bitten news hounds who sniff out corruption and raise the hew and cry when it smells the taint of ill-conceived, nefarious plots doing its job? It appears that the reporters on the presidential beat are merely cheerleaders for the administration, and the one's who don't tow the line appear to disappear quickly from the White House press corps. Hmmmm?

I cannot grasp the ethical, moral or political value of taking over a country like Iraq under the premise of democratizing the populace; a populace that's never known democracy, is suspicious of democracy, at best, and hates America and all things American, at worst.

It's as if we're determined to cram a square peg into a round hole, no matter that it cannot be done, logic and reason be damned!

Oh well. It's our nation and I suppose we can dump it into the fire if we want to or, probably closer to the truth, if we don't care to uphold our end of the deal and carry some of the weight that accompanies OUR OWN democratic system in order to protect our freedom-loving society (we are a freedom-loving society, aren't we?).

The sheer arrogance of this misguided experiment in militarily-imposed "freedom" baffles me. The fact that G.W. gets away with empty platitudes and stuttering utterances that lead nowhere in light of the very real suffering that he's causing both our military personnel (could be your neighbor's husband or wife — could be yours) and the people of Iraq is beyond all understanding. FUBAR! That's the only adequate phrase, albeit foreshortened acronym, that describes our current status as a nation in THIS world. So thanks to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the people who brought you Enron, Bechtel, Schlumbergé, Disney World and Purina Dog Chow for a very merry war, indeed!

Our political currency — as well as our REAL currency — is beginning to swirl around the toilet bowl toward that dark oblivion known as obliteration, and the emperor fiddles a vacuous, discordant tune.
Meantime, life goes on. The sellers are selling, the buyers are buying and the poor continue to starve as the rich pick their bones. Ahem. Well, I guess that's the status quo du jour. Check out Ben Sargent's (sp?) editorial cartoon and ponder, if you will, its meaning. After that, have a Merry Christmas for God's sake, or we'll kill ya!

Ben Sargent's wit