No, my computer’s not dead. But people are

Jan. 10, 2008
Black Rockalypse

Finally. Finally they let me out of the infirmary, let me come home, let me get to my computer and sound the alarm.

I almost cut off the tip of my pinkie, too, so typing may be slow going.

We don’t know any of the deceased — none of us in here know them. None of us who witnessed the attack, anyway. Four dead at least, maybe five or six. We don’t know who’s actually dead and who might be severely injured, as all casualties happened on the outside. Some were locals from somewhere around here (Fernley, Gerlach, Fallon, Empire, Wadsworth); some were kind-hearted freaks who road-tripped out here to try to help protect us when they heard the call to witness.

They have paid with their lives.

Blackwater killed them. Sure, the bullets ricocheting off the Not-Suits are what actually killed them, but Blackwater fired the bullets.

I’m sure we know someone who knows them. Knows them all. They used to be people.

I’ve been trying to think about how to outline the events of the past few weeks in a manner befitting their import. It’s still going to take me a minute to gather myself after my protracted, chem-trail-induced illness … so in the meantime, I have this to say.

—————

Don’t let them do this.

They always take the freaks first.

Don’t let them.

While I was in the infirmary, I read Naomi Wolf’s The End of America: Letter to a Young Patriot. And it scared the shit out of me, even though I’m currently embroiled in a wildly scary scenario. Indeed, Wolf’s book made it seem safer in here under the Not-Dome than out there amongst the oligarchs, war pigs, and Reptilians.

In her book, Wolf outlines the 10 steps would-be dictators always — ALWAYS — take when collapsing a free society into a fascist regime. There is a blueprint, and all the bad guys use it. Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, all of them. … Hint: They inevitably start by eroding and then destroying constitutional freedoms.

The current Bush Administration, Wolf continues, has initiated action on all 10 of these steps.

Let me break the 10 steps down for you, if you, like me, are too generally lazy to read.

(We are, most of us, too lazy to do things these days, aren’t we? We are the Lotus Eaters whom Tennyson spoke about. That’s not a compliment.)

HOW TO SHUT DOWN A FREE SOCIETY

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. Create a gulag — a prison system outside the rule of law — where torture takes place. At first, only “criminals” are sent there, but eventually, anyone who opposes the regime — clergy, opposition members, civil rights leaders, WRITERS — gets incarcerated along with the “enemy”

3. Develop a thug caste (hello, Blackwater, thanks for fucking up everything for us, you amoral mercenary bastards, why do you even care, why don’t you just go home and leave us alone)

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

5. Harass citizens’ groups (or dirtbag festival workers transported to a Not-Dome in the dimension next door, say)

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release (I’ll bet I’m on the Terrorist Watch list. Are you?)

7. Target key individuals (Valerie Plame, anyone?)

8. Control the press (you gotta be rather thick to doubt this one’s happening)

9. Dissent equals treason. Here’s the part that scares me the most: Ever since our lily-livered Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the president has been able to label anyone he likes as an “enemy combatant.” Anyone who opposes him can be seized, whisked right on past habeas corpus, and thrown into an isolation cell in Guantanamo for months while awaiting trial. Think about it: You and most of your friends could possibly be “enemy combatants.” I can’t help but think I could.

10. Suspend the rule of law. Did you know the President may now invoke martial law whenever he pleases, and use military troops as his domestic police force? And that he remains President as long as martial law is in effect?

See? Scary.

What do you bet there’ll be some sort of “terrorist attack” in America before the new election has a chance to kick these pigs out of office?

—————-

I remember the first time I realized I was living in a budding fascist state. A few days before we were transported out here to the Not-Dome, I sat in a kitchen talking with two artistic friends about another genius we knew. In the course of conversation, I mentioned that the genius friend specialized in making bombs.

For entertainment, of course. My friends only make explosives for entertainment’s sake. Explosives are fucking entertaining.

Anyway, the other friends had no idea about the genius’ proclivities in this regard. They both started in to ask me more about it … and then, unconsciously and instantly, they both silenced themselves.

We all looked at each other as if we’d accidentally uttered a curse that might awaken a lake troll. We had all become uncomfortable just because I mentioned out loud someone we knew was good at making bombs.

As in, I might have ratted the genius out, and a Homeland Security squadron might already be on the way to their house to lock them up.

As in, all three of us independently and simultaneously assumed someone else — someone governmental — was listening to our conversation.

Think about that for a minute.

Is this still America?

—————-

I am scared. So, so scared. That means the terrorists have almost won. And I think we all know who the terrorists are. At least on this soil.

I feel like an apocalypto Tinkerbell. Clap your hands and wish real hard.

Please God don’t let America turn into the kind of place where some jackass loser loudmouth rodeo klown like me can actually be considered an enemy combatant and get thrown into a private federal prison where they do torture.

People of Earth.

Let the sun shine in.

—————-

They try to take whatever they want. They don’t even want to talk about it. They just take. They don’t care. They don’t care about you.

Stop letting the takers take.