Bush Wants to Dirty Our Water and Wash Our Brains

By: Kent Southard

Boy, the post-election 'surprises' just keep coming, don't they? Of course, to those of us paying attention, it's like pilots watching an airshow or race drivers watching a race - they can spot an accident in progress well before the general crowd knows anything's amiss. Saudi funding of Al Qaeda? We knew that. Bush gutting clean air and water rules? We could've told you. (And who could be in the least bit surprised?) Total Information Awareness to track each citizen's every movement? We expected nothing less.

The arrogance of it all provides a kind of gothic amusement, gallows humor for the soon to be dispossessed. On the PBS Newshour, discussing TIA with the pundits from the civil liberties side and the Bush Reich side, the Bush guy didn't even make an effort to sound sincere: "Oh, yes, it's true all domestic surveillance programs have gotten out of control in the past, but, ya' know, I really don't think that will happen this time. No, really. [Nudge-nudge! Wink-wink!] I'm sure this administration will follow the rule of law. [Chortle! Snicker! Guffaw!]" Every fiber of his being was saying 'if you're dumb enough to believe me, then you deserve this'.

Of course, since Dec. 2000, the rule of law seems to be whatever Antonin Scalia and four like-minded Supreme Court justices say it is, so pardon me if I'm not comforted by the affirmation that Bush will "follow the rule of law".

"If you've got nothing to hide, what do you have to worry about?" the apologists say. Well, who's to say, and why should I have to answer to you anyway? should be the proper response. Last I looked, I wasn't a member of Al Qaeda or an Iraqi agent. But somehow the Bush administration contends that 'national security' will be enhanced by knowing the contents of my grocery shopping cart.

So here it is - I don't eat chain fast food as a rule; but my grocery cart does most often contain bacon, whole-fat milk or half-and-half too. Given the opportunity, I'd probably eat carnitas tacos every day. I generally drive sensibly, except when I don't, and average a speeding ticket every three years. I'm probably the only person on the planet to ever get a ticket for 'exhibition of speed' while driving a Geo Metro (my girlfriend's). My finances could be in better shape. I apparently went to the 'wrong school'. Off the Net, I've bought Levi's, original French art prints, an Italian pistola and the Russian ammo for it, vintage U.S. Army Air Forces flight clothing, and probably more books than average. I'd like to buy a decent sofa, but that's probably a brick and mortar purchase. My Web search habits would reveal that I'm researching transplanting a Japanese market 20-valve engine into my old Toyota MR2. On message boards, I've defended comments the late George Harrison and Joni Mitchell have made about the state of popular music, offering that Madonna has always seemed less a musician than an ongoing marketing campaign for a perfume company or something. When Jim Jeffords defected from the GOP, I sent the White House an email: "Where's your famous political capital now?" (Well, they got me on that, now.) And so on.

Of what possible use could any of this be to the Pentagon and/or John Ashcroft in 'the war on terrorism'? Diddly, I'd say. Absolute squat. Jackshit. But here's a forward-looking thought: It's a fact that there already exists an Intel and warning network for the more important of our corporations - if Osama had the Bomb and the government knew where and when, the first warning most people would have would be when the executive parking lot suddenly emptied out. To me, the most interesting tidbit to emerge from the Enron story was how that company's 'security detail' were spooks 'on loan' from the CIA. From this, you would have to realize that the meshing of government and corporate power has progressed much further than most of us were aware.

So, we don't have to assume there are 'levels of access' in the corporate world that merge with the security apparatus of the government - the proof is already there. So, don't you think that once TIA is up and running perhaps it's most important client could well be the corporate executive suite? Punch in an employee's retinal scan and, voila! Every petty, lurid, and fattening detail of their life is on instant display. Don't want to provide health insurance for someone who eats bacon? What could be more reasonable? Surely a classic issue best left to the 'private sector' if ever there was one.

Perhaps there will be a whole new burgeoning field opening up in the world of corporate 'Human Resources' - the new office of 'Cultural Compliance', wherein prospective employees are compared against 'profiles' of who and who might not be best suited for integration into that company's corporate culture. Read too many books? We don't care for 'intellectuals' around here. Have a variety of interests? Well, we really strongly endorse a primary loyalty to the company. Think you're entitled to a private life? What country do you think you're in? And how dare you criticize it and 'our freedoms'?

But then, those of us paying attention know that this administration has been lining up its ducks very efficiently - at the DOJ, one of Ashcroft's top lieutenants, a Vietnamese named Trinh I believe, has already authored the doctrine of "Ordered Liberty". Conceive of the country as one big Catholic School, wherein our 'liberty' consists of obeying all of their many rules, and you get a good idea of where they're headed.

Mussolini apparently said that fascism was better described as corporatism, wherein the state and corporate power merged as one. As so we see things shaping up here - an America where freedom has become a market commodity, along with education, health care, and even clean air and water; rightly reserved for our corporate masters, just as with their 12-cylinder German cars and trophy wives. That is how they see things. And now they have the power to make it so.