Shopping List for Seven Days in May(be)

Something that is both a blessing and a problem with blogging daily is that it takes you places you didn't know you would go and teaches you things that you didn't know that you knew.

The blessing is kind of obvious as knowledge and the thirst for understanding is a prime element of being human.

The problem is that not all places are nice to be acquainted with and not all knowledge is pleasant to know -- but then, that is also part of being human, at least being a mature human being.

Yesterday, I made a play on the title of the Frakenheimer movie, "Seven Days in May" in the title of my post.

Today, I ran had my face rubbed in the theme by a Naomi Wolf article I ran into at Common Dreams. Also, on the radio here in Denmark this morning, there was a report on Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch words from his brother Kevin and Private Lynch.

I said yesterday, that I didn't really believe the nightmare at which I had hinted had a basis in reality. But that was somewhat tongue in cheek -- what we call snark here...

The point with the Tillman brothers and Private Lynch is the way they were abused to serve the propaganda purposes of the military and the Codpiece Administration propaganda. Indeed, when Sunflower Woman heard the radio this morning she exclaimed that it was just like the Nazi propaganda we had heard in a documentary we saw night about the Second World War.

I recall a warning the character of Lyndon Johnson gave to the Nixon character (I think) in Stone's "Nixon" to be careful not to lose the trust of the American People, because once you have lost it, you don't get it back.

The point is: We don't want to believe our leaders and representatives lie to us, but once they have lost our trust, we assume everything they tell us is a lie until proven otherwise.

Naomi's article starts with a reference to last Fall's military coup in Thailand, which received a shockingly modest, even positive reaction here in West World. As she puts it:

"The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did..."

Here is the shopping list:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. Create a gulag

3. Develop a thug caste

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

5. Harass citizens' groups

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. Target key individuals

8. Control the press

9. Dissent equals treason

10. Suspend the rule of law

If you don't see how this applies to the Codpiece / Snarly administration, you have been sleeping in class and have as homework assignment to go read Ms. Wolf's article.

I do want to make a comment on #9 on the shopping list: The dust of the Twin Towers (and WTC-7) had not had time to settle before we heard from Mr. Snarly that, in essence, dissent is treason -- that and the meme with such ominous connotations, "Homeland Security" appeared, full blown, like Minerva from the forehead of Zeus.

The fact is, Codpiece and Mr. Snarly have the ethics of immature bullies and the morals of mobster bosses. They have shown to the world that they are capable of anything up to and including mass murder -- as long as somebody else does it for them.