Sen. Joe Lieberman has introduced legislation to deprive Americans of their citizenship rights if they engage in acts of terrorism. He advocates turning the bad guys over to the military. Of course, other lawmakers are moving in Lieberman’s misdirection in a nationalistic stampede. So far, John Mc-NeverWasAMaverick-Cain and Chuck Schumer have shown support.
McCain said, “ Americans should lose their citizenship rights if they’re designated an enemy combatant, yes.”
Not to be out-patrioticized, Schumer was quick with a, “That sounds like something I’d support, but I’d have to look at the legislation.”
Attorney General Eric Holder is talking about “modifying” Miranda rights in certain cases.
And there’s this:
Elena Kagan, the president’s choice to join the Supremes agrees with the Bush Administration that anyone suspected of helping finance al- Qaida should be stripped of rights and held under indefinite detention, without trial. Obama’s selection of Kagan shines a spotlight on his inner Bush. In fact, Obama hasn’t seen a Bush action he truly disavows.
So much is going on that my stream of consciousness is overflowing. In fact, I am streaming Samuel Taylor Coleridge, right now. And I’ll write it, not in stanza form but, the way it’s moving in my mind, without commas: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree where Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea.
That’s just the beginning, the words I memorized years ago. But there’s also something about sinking in tumult to a lifeless ocean. And Kubla hearing from afar ancestral voices prophesying war.
Here’s why I’m streaming Samuel. It’s that dome. The one that failed. BP’s GREAT idea to contain the oil that’s gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Domes and war. And stripped rights. And terrorists. American terrorists. Calamities. A new justice. No justice.
My thoughts are streaming, spilling, overflowing.
But I can make something of this. I can think about the meaning of aiding al-Qaida. And Obama’s saying that the war in Iraq has inspired terrorism. While he was a senator. During the campaign. Inspiring terrorism has to fall under “aiding” al-Qaida by building the ranks, the recruitment. So, there’s some arresting and removal of citizenship to be done. Members of Congress. The Executive Branch. Anyone who whooped it up when George and Dick lied to send our troops to battle and to kill or maim a country’s people. Including George and Dick. Their administration. All who approve of drones and expanding these robots of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan to target, supposedly, a terrorist or two but, usually, killing civilians. Because every single time we kill a civilian, we are making it easier for terrorist organizations to thrive and grow. And making it easier for terrorism to thrive and grow is engaging in acts of terrorism.
Stay with me, here.
That BP dome is not a pleasure dome, unlike Samuel’s creation when he, most likely, was under the influence of opium. Yet, BP was, also, under the influence, high on greed, something much more dangerous than Coleridge’s drug. His choice shaped a poem; BP’s produced a disaster.
Greed is the addiction of Big Oil and those who’ve won their elections and appointments because of donations crafted and drafted from a huge cesspool of corruption, yielding ruptures of rock on the ocean floor. Ruptures of conscience. Ruptures of trust.
Imagine if there were one gigantic dome that, suddenly, could be lowered to suck inside the Power Elite and encapsulate their exploitation. One heavy, son-of-a-bitch metal structure to prevent the gushing greed that defines the corporate-owned government of the United States. The greed that demands, “Take, take, take from planet Earth with no consideration for the future of our children and all children throughout the world.”
Oh, I’m getting a headache from all this reality-induced streaming, but I’m, now, conceptualizing BP’s next possible repair for their weapon of mass destruction. The new fix is the “junk shot,” to plug the blowout preventer. Tires, knots of rope. Junk.
So, here’s an idea: propel the real junk, the BP executives and politicos who made it possible for this war against the environment. My stream is overflowing with a visual of the bodies I’d want blown through the water, hurling, deeply, deeply to cork the calamity. The war profiteers, those who rape the resources of the countries we invade and occupy, and all who act with violence against Earth’s ecosystem. Either dome or junk them.
Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She’s written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she’s a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,’05, she has been writing political articles. She can be reached at: Missybeat@aol.com
