I only have two words to say: Kick. Ass.

I’ve been pretty busy lately with school. I don’t think this will be a trend that’ll fade any time soon. Our first real assignment is due in a couple of days, the same day as the novice mooting competition in fact. The assignment is to write an office memo. It’s fun. J But I’m seriously behind in writing summaries for my courses. It looks like I’m just going to have my unfiltered notes to study for the midterms from.

David and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary this past weekend. J He got me a claddagh ring. J Which I am delighted with. J I used to think they were corny and hokey, after Buffy made them popular. But I don’t anymore. J Mine is better than Buffy’s anyways, since it’s gold and it’s from Ireland. I’ve been showing it off to everyone. J  Apparently David’s dad had a small freak-out when he heard his son got his girlfriend a ring. I think one of my friends was close to jumping to the same conclusion as well. J

Jack Layton (federal leader of the New Democratic Party) gave a talk at Osgoode last week. He had a comfortable, personable speaking style, which I appreciated, except that he tended to get off topic. So he only got to talk about environmental issues, and had to leave out Afghanistan and poverty. What he did say, I liked. He gave examples of practical, economically sound measures to take to encourage a transition to clean energy sources and sustainability, and examples of what the NDP are actually getting accomplished in parliament. People make fun of Jack Layton for being like a used-car salesman, but I admire him as a politician. He took a crushed party and brought them electoral success, he knows how to leverage the influence of a minority party to the best effect, and he’s focused on formulating and enacting good policy rather than politicking.

Provincial election and referendum on the electoral system tomorrow. I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

And I’m looking forward to reading I Am America and So Can You. Should be good. J I’d really like Colbert to have Ann Coulter on the Report. That psychotic fascist bitch needs to be seriously mocked, if not publicly repudiated. Really she should be tried and convicted for hate speech.

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

You can see that all this is happening (read the article for details). All that's left is the tenth step.

The stuff I found particularly creepy:

At first, the people who are sent there are seen by citizens as outsiders: troublemakers, spies, "enemies of the people" or "criminals". Initially, citizens tend to support the secret prison system; it makes them feel safer and they do not identify with the prisoners. But soon enough, civil society leaders - opposition members, labour activists, clergy and journalists - are arrested and sent there as well.

Okay, so that's not anything new. But it did drive home the point, for me, that what we're seeing now in the USA are serious danger signs, and that it's not necessary to wait for things to get worse before concluding that things are going very wrong.

The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America's security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the US military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. 

... after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans. The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. ... the administration's endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities. 

... If you are reading history, you can imagine that there can be a need for "public order" on the next election day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election; history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a polling station "to restore public order".

The scary thing is that I really can see this happening. Americans are already so apathetic about the way their elections are conducted; there was a shocking lack of outrage about the discrepancies that occured in the last two elections. 

a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 "suspicious incidents". The equally secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organisations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track "potential terrorist threats" as it watches ordinary US citizen activists. A little-noticed new law has redefined activism such as animal rights protests as "terrorism".

...

In 2004, America's Transportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list of passengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried to fly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela's government - after Venezuela's president had criticised Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens.

Professor Walter F Murphy is emeritus of Princeton University; he is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the nation and author of the classic Constitutional Democracy. Murphy is also a decorated former marine, and he is not even especially politically liberal. But on March 1 this year, he was denied a boarding pass at Newark, "because I was on the Terrorist Watch list".

"Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," asked the airline employee.

"I explained," said Murphy, "that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution."

"That'll do it," the man said.

You can see how far this extends beyond dealing with reasonable threats to the security of the United States. A genuine threat is being used to silence political opposition.

Bush supporters in state legislatures in several states put pressure on regents at state universities to penalise or fire academics who have been critical of the administration. As for civil servants, the Bush administration has derailed the career of one military lawyer who spoke up for fair trials for detainees, while an administration official publicly intimidated the law firms that represent detainees pro bono by threatening to call for their major corporate clients to boycott them.

Elsewhere, a CIA contract worker who said in a closed blog that "waterboarding is torture" was stripped of the security clearance she needed in order to do her job.

Most recently, the administration purged eight US attorneys for what looks like insufficient political loyalty.

...

The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high.

...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented multiple accounts of the US military in Iraq firing upon or threatening to fire upon unembedded (meaning independent) reporters and camera operators from organisations ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC.

...

You won't have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it's not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can't tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit. 

...

most Americans do not realise that since September of last year - when Congress ... passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - the president has the power to call any US citizen an "enemy combatant". He has the power to define what "enemy combatant" means. The president can also delegate to anyone he chooses in the executive branch the right to define "enemy combatant" any way he or she wants and then seize Americans accordingly.

...

legal rights activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights say that the Bush administration is trying increasingly aggressively to find ways to get around giving even US citizens fair trials. "Enemy combatant" is a status offence - it is not even something you have to have done. "We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model - you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we're going to hold you," says a spokeswoman of the CCR.

...

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens. ... Critics see this as a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act - which was meant to restrain the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement. The Democratic senator Patrick Leahy says the bill encourages a president to declare federal martial law. 

When you see the pieces of all these different incidents put together, a picture does become clear. I've argued before that America is listing towards fascism, mainly in terms of ideology, with some disturbing factual shifts in that direction as well. When you read this, you realize just how far the Bush administration has gone. Of course freedoms have been limited in times of war in the past, and the US has engaged in civil rights abuses during such times, and things got better when the war was over. But as Wolf points out, the "War on Terror" is a war against an amorphous enemy, on a global battlefield, without any end in sight. 

a hollowness has been expanding under the foundation of all these still- free-looking institutions - and this foundation can give way under certain kinds of pressure. To prevent such an outcome, we have to think about the "what ifs".

What if, in a year and a half, there is another attack - say, God forbid, a dirty bomb? The executive can declare a state of emergency. History shows that any leader, of any party, will be tempted to maintain emergency powers after the crisis has passed. With the gutting of traditional checks and balances, we are no less endangered by a President Hillary than by a President Giuliani - because any executive will be tempted to enforce his or her will through edict rather than the arduous, uncertain process of democratic negotiation and compromise.

And there's the rub. It's not just a matter of partisan ideology, it's a structural change in the way America is run. 

I am so going to read Wolf's book. The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I'm back in school, I'll probably be spending more time on LJ. ;-) And facebook too. Everyone uses facebook, I need to get in on the action. 

Osgoode Law school is great. Everyone's smart, the classes are interesting, and the material is just challenging enough, without being difficult. I think I'm gonna try to get on some mooting teams. I didn't even know that mooting was an activity a few weeks ago. (For those of you who don't know, mooting is pretending to be a lawyer in a pretend court). And I won a $50 gift certificate for Yorkdale mall for kicking ass in the frosh-week scavenger hunt. :-D The only thing I don't like is that the books are ridiculously heavy. And expensive.

York is a crappy campus though. There aren't any cool places to hang out like there were at the University of Toronto. They do have a little mall-type place, and vendors in their food court selling jewlery, video games and marijuana paraphenalia. It's creepy. It takes me an hour and a half to get up there. Oh, and sexual assault is a regular occurance on campus. I need to get some mace. 

I lent the first two seasons of Buffy to my friend Cynthia, and she's totally hooked. She sped through season 2 in a week. Now David and I have to hurry up and finish season 3 so I can give her that too.

I'm past the five-month mark with my boyfriend David. Yay! And we're still all happy and lovey-dovey, really disgustingly cute. It's great. :-D I've spent some time with his family too and we're really getting along. His dad even gave me a free dental check-up. ... actually that was kind of weird. 

I'm watching Farscape now, because David lent it to me. I just saw the first two episodes. It's okay I guess. The villain is kind of lame. And the characterization could be stronger. As could the script in general. And the direction. I'm assuming it gets better. I'd probably enjoy it more if I wasn't judging against the Firefly standard of sci-fi.

Brian K. Vaughn is, like, my hero. I LOVE the first issue of "No Future for You." The dialogue is right on, and he does such a great job with Faith. Having Faith and Giles work together is just... *squee!* That's the only way to describe it. My two favourite characters. Together. I am so pulling for Faith/Giles now. Faith/Giles FTW!!!

Haven't been around much these days. But I just read Issue #5 of Buffy Season 8 ("The Chain").

Anyways, what I really wanted to write about was a certain letter, from John Dorsey of Piscataway, NJ, that appeared at the back of the issue. Because it's the type of thing that I just love pulling apart. Quotes from the letter are in italics.

Hello,
First, I'd like to say that I am thrilled by the return of Buffy as it is my all-time favourite TV show, and I thought that the first issue was excellent overall. However, I have one minor quibble - the negative portrayal of the US government.

First of all, the US government has not been portrayed Buffy Season 8. The US army has. The USA is not a military dictatorship. Military goals and political goals are very different things. The interests of the army can outright clash with the interests of the government. They can certainly influence each other heavily, but the army and the government ought not to be equated. Depicting a war-mongering gerneral is not the same as depicting a war-mongering president. It's a general's job to make war, so it's in a way understandable if that's his default response to challenges. Military decision-makers are frequently more hawkish than government officials, and their language is typically rife with machismo and aggressiveness. Furthermore, the US is highly activist and has engaged in covert operations to remove governments or foreign leaders who, like Buffy, are in no way evil, and have the potential to have a positive impact, because they challenge the United States in some way, often ideologically. It has allied itself with unsavory characters in the past as well. Joss' depiction of the US army is entirely valid.

Secondly, the depiction of the US army is not starkly negative. The general gave some very good reasons for why the Slayers were considered a threat. He says, "Do you really think we were going to sit by and let you create a master race? You're not human. You've been to war with demons, with the First, but, believe me, you've picked the wrong side. 'cause God help us, if you win then you'll decide that the world still isn't the way you want it, and the demon in you will say just one thing: "SLAY"." You can poke holes in the logic, but it makes a kind of sense. And it's a very American point of view. It's reminicent of American attitudes towards communism, which is interesting, because there seems to be a real nostalgia for the clarity and purpose of the Cold War among this administration (and I don't think it's the only national government to feel that way).

Look, I understand that it's just a comic book, but it's annoying how the entire entertainment industry (as well as most of the news media) continually portrays the United States government as being corrupt or just outright evil. This is simply wrong.

First of all, this person thinks the US news media is overly critical? They ought to check out British news. Journalists ought to hold the government to account, and if it can't stand up to scrutiny, then there's a problem.

Secondly, he doesn't even consider the possibility that there is a problem. Of course the government is corrupt. There's been clear instances of corruption. That's what happens when governments are in power for a while, they get corrupt. It's difficult to avoid. Saying the US government is corrupt isn't an extraordinary statement.

Clear-thinking people understand that the U.S., while not perfect, is a force for good in the world,

I love that he just says, "Clear thinking people think such-and-such," as though "clear thinking people" all adhere to one point of view. I also love that he allows that the US "is not perfect." Gee, ya think? Calling the US "a force for good in the world" just shows an absence of logic. A government cannot be a force for good. To be neorealist about it, a government is a force for the promotion of its own interests and power in the world, by those means available to it. In doing so, it may accomplish "good" things or "bad" things, which is pretty subjective. The US has done some very positive things, but there's no arguing that in many instances the US has been a force for chaos and suffering, by toppling democratic/popular governments and supporting corrupt regimes, most recently in Haiti. During the Cold War, depending on which side one was on, such actions could be considered to be in the interest of some greater good. Even when intervention and military action can justified as in the genuine and sincere interest of the people whose  country is being intervened in, harm is still often done. Look at the NATO bombings of Serbia, or the current occupation of Afghanistan. Being as activist and as powerful as the United States is, it can hardly help but cause harm. Having the kind of power the US has means dominating others, as much as some Americans like to think they are a benevolent super-power. Saying the US is "a force for good" is naive, just as saying that it is a force for evil is simplistic and extreme.

and the media is partially to blame for the enormous anti-American feeling that the rest of the world (wrongly) has for us.

So it's the media's fault. Uh huh. Because the rest of the world doesn't have its own news and entertainment sources to draw its opinions from. Heaven knows that US conduct abroad isn't to blame. Heaven knows that there aren't legitimate reasons for resenting the United States. A super-power is gonna make itself unpopular in the process of maintaining it's power, someone is always going to lose out. Recently, by eschewing multilateralism, the United States has done even more to make itself disliked, because it's given up the pretence that it is anything but the biggest bully in the playground. Blaming the media for anti-Americanism is like blaming someone who calls 911 for a fire.

I also strongly feel that because people in the entertainment media have such an enormous influence on our culture, they need to take some measure of responsibility for their actions.

Self-regulation is so much more effective, and less expensive, than censorship.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Joss Whedon and his writing abilities, but it would have been nice if he could have portrayed some other government as the villain?

So, it's okay to villainize other governments, just not the USA? Hypocritic, much? Also, in these comics, the Slayers have gone global, they need an adversary with global power. No government fits that bill better than the US. And, being and American writer, whose audience is largely American, presenting a critique of the USA in his writing is the most relevent way to go.

Why not Iran?

I don't see how the Buffy writers can pass up doing a story about a Slayer in a conservative Islamic country. But Iran doesn't have the capacity to wipe out a secret, international paramiltary organization. The US does. Iran just doesn't cut it as a big bad, it's more of a monster of the week.

They're probably the greatest threat to the world right now, aren't they?

Does Iran have nuclear weapons? Um... no. Do they have a massive conventional army? No. Are they interventionist on a global scale? Again, no. They're a threat to the stability of the middle east, and a threat to the American presence there, so they have the capacity to cause economic problems on a world scale. And honestly, the invasion of Iraq has done more to destabilize the region than anything else, and has presented Iran with an opportunity to extend it's own power.

But I suppose having an actual terrorist nation like Iran as the villain would not be politically correct.

I'm not sure if the letter writer meant to say that Iran sponsors international terrorism, and that's what the Slayers should be fighting. If so, that's just not suitable for a major adversary. I'm not saying they'll never take out terrorist cells, but in the global scheme of things, terrorists lack power, which is why they resort to the tactics they use. The awakening of the Slayers is about creating a new world order, which challenges the old one, that is to say, America. Also, Americans don't get off calling other countries "terrorist nations". As true as the label may be, it's just the pot calling the kettle black.

It's funny how this dude goes on about how people in the media have a responsibility to society, and then a few sentences later criticizes political correctness. Like the media ought to be free to offend everybody but him.

This letter typifies a certain mindset that equates the American government and army with the American ideal, and the things America stands for. Which is a dangerous mindset to have because it is a lot more difficult to accept and learn from criticism of one's beliefs than of one's government.