In a nutshell
Elsewhere, clarity is sorely lacking.
Sloppy thinking gets worse over time
If immigrants are so overwhelmingly scary and unassimilable, and such a drain on the communities that harbor them, how come my city can kick your city's ass?
In the meantime, maybe some enterprising reporters somewhere could start asking administration officials - and their stalwart Senate allies - why it is that they are so eager to avoid a judicial ruling on the legality of this program if they are so confident that the president did nothing wrong. People who are unjustly accused of violating the law are eager to have their name cleared. Why isn't the president?
There has, in American journalism, been an unspoken calculus of the value of a life and a death on this planet in terms of newsworthiness (which is often, of course, a kind of memorializing, a kind of remembering). Crudely put, it would go something like: One kidnapped and murdered blond, white child in California equals 300 Egyptians drowning in a ferry accident, 3,000 Bangladeshis swept away in a monsoon flood, 300,000 Congolese killed in a bloodletting civil war.
People have tried to think of ways we could get back to where we were. We keep going further and further into the hole, and it's getting harder and harder to get out of it.
DearAnonymous,
Thank you for contacting the Verizon eCenter, where we value you as a Verizon Encore customer. My name isAnonymous, and I will be handling your request today.
This message is in response to your email dated May 12, 2006. You inquired about the NSA news article . I understand your concern and I will be happy to assist you.
We appreciate that the USA Today article and other reports about the possibility that the NSA is able to analyze local call data records is causing concern. Please be assured that Verizon places the highest value on protecting the privacy of our customers.
Anything to do with the NSA is of course highly classified, so we can not comment on whether or not the news article causing concern is even accurate. But we can say that, to the extent that we cooperate with government authorities, we are confident that we are complying with all applicable statutes. We appreciate the continuing opportunity to provide you with service.
We appreciate the special relationship we have with you and we are committed to making your experience with Verizon the best that it can be. Thank you for contacting Verizon.
Sincerely,Anonymous
Verizon eCenter"
I can't explain it to you, but it has a powerful deja vu. When I got up this morning and read the USA Today headline, I thought the future had been a little more evenly distributed. Now we've all got some...William Gibson [minute 33]
Once again, the administration has broken the law- and if Americans let them get away with it, before you know it, we will all be Guantanamo.
There It Is
And if we don't fight
if we don't resist
if we don't organize and unify and
get the power to control our own lives
Then we will wear
the exaggerated look of captivity
the stylized look of submission
the bizarre look of suicide
the dehumanized look of fear
and the decomposed look of repression
forever and ever and ever
And there it is