rumsfeld: i put myself in other people's shoes often.

[subjective]

press: what evidence do you have that this is actually working?
rumsfeld: we have evidence.
press: but what sort of evidence?
rumsfeld: good evidence. next question.


do you think the government is looking at online journals of anti-war & progressive people as part of the crackdown on dissent?


i've been thinking a lot the past few days about what can be done. thinking about what's written here & gordon wondering if someday we are going to be faced with the question of how we all just went to work everyday while this happened. this morning, watching cnn reporters talk about a nuclear plant near phoenix that is a possible site for a terrorist attack (apparently), taryn turned to me & asked "how come it's a terrorist attack here & war there?" it is the ultimate privilege to always consider war as something that happens elsewhere, externally. is this the reason that it seems so unlikely to me that this country will ever see anything like armed rebellion from within, or political assassination with the intent of regime change? while rumsfeld reads a speech about liberating iraqi citizens from an oppressive regime, i can only try to envision what that might look like here in the u.s. what if someone decided that the people of the u.s. wanted freedom, that we want to be liberated from a repressive government that is killing its citizens, defending racist policies, disregarding international law, making a mockery of democracy, hoarding weapons of mass destruction & using violence to silence dissent both external & internal.

it's not that i'm trying to draw parallels. because for starters, obviously this isn't about the iraqi people & repressive leadership & liberation at all. whatever you do, do not destroy the oil wells. last night, listening to tom brokaw talk about the measures being taken to protect civilians + oil wells, i was horrified to hear him casually say "because in a few days we're going to own that country."

meanwhile, in order to "tighten security," the u.s. is preparing to begin detentions of all people from arab & muslim countries who are seeking political asylum.

the problem with no longer believing the lie of democracy in this country is the political paralysis that results from the knowledge that your dissent doesn't really have an impact at all. complacency, hopelessness, or realism? or does one beget another?

Comments

[redrider.livejournal.com]

ditto. this week i've been thinking about paralysis & about protest and about why i have such a hard time getting out of one space and into the other -- why it is i feel resistant to being on the street, but at the same time feel deeply upset about what's happening.