December 2004

Dear Readers,

It seems like this would be the month to recount a touching holiday memory, wish everyone peace in the New Year, mention that it’s my two-year anniversary with Vital Source and be done with it.

But in the words of Chuck D., I’ve got so much trouble on my mind. I’ve been trying, hard as I can, to engage in the same liberal/progressive group hug so extensively talked about in this issue. I’m trying to tell myself that given the choice between the ineptitude we knew and the vote of no-confidence we couldn’t trust, it’s not surprising-and maybe even not the worst thing in the world-that we stick with the leadership we have for another four years. But I don’t know if I can continue to tamp down my uneasiness and be a good national citizen in light of some pretty scary shit going on around the country and in our own backyard.

I’m kind of freaked out about Weldon Angelos. He’s the 25-year old Utah man convicted for the first time of selling pot while carrying a pistol in his bootstrap and having more guns at home. Granted, it’s no way to raise a family, and I have a low opinion of him for putting his two young sons in harm’s way, not to mention the example he was setting. But U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell was forced to sentence him to 55 years with no probation because of the weapons possession element, which forced the case into federal court. Now before you dismiss me as a sniveling liberal soft on drug crime, hang on for just a second while we place this in its larger context.

Judge Cassell himself, described as a brainy, conservative former law professor, surveyed the maximum sentences for other federal crimes, and this is what he found: Hijacking an airplane: 25 years. Terrorist bombing intending to kill a bystander: 20 years. Second-degree murder: 14 years. Kidnapping: 13 years. Rape of a 10-year-old: 11 years. Selling pot while carrying a pistol: 55 years. Needless to say, Cassell is mortified, Angelo’s family is devastated and people everywhere are starting to call for re-examination of mandatory sentences and the possibility that some violate our Eighth Amendment rights under the Constitution. In the meantime, Weldon’s plans are to sit behind bars until he’s 80 years old and his sons are old men themselves. So much for family values.

Speaking of which, I have a good friend whose two sons are teenagers in New Berlin. The eldest is a senior, and he’s had his share of troubles. He’s been picked up by New Berlin’s finest for awful crimes like stealing a hood ornament off an abandoned car, leaving campus for lunch and littering in a Taco Bell parking lot (that one earned him four squads and a canine unit). This week, he received a detention for swearing. The naughty nugget? “Jesus Christ.” Yep, that’s what this seventeen year-old boy said, and the fine administration of New Berlin West lost no time in dealing retribution. This is the same school that holds annual “surprise,” dog-led drug searches on students’ lockers. They used to do the parking lot as well, but too many parents complained about the dogs scratching the paint on their cars, so that practice was discontinued.

This is real, folks, I can’t make this shit up. Anyway, I am begging my friend’s son, as long as he’s a marked man anyway, to engage in this social experiment: stand outside the principal’s office, drop his backpack on his foot and yell, at the top of his lungs, “Holy Mohammed! That hurts!” Then he should insist on being given a detention again. What do you think would happen?

We could ask Mark Belling what he thinks. Has the diversity and sensitivity training Clear Channel promised he would receive taught him that Muslims deserve the right to not have their messiah’s name taken in vain? Doubtful. He’s already back on the air with his handlers’ full support, barking and growling about how “this show ain’t changing at all.” In Belling’s world, then, Mexicans are wetbacks until proven documented, and good pitbulls like him get to stand in for Rush Limbaugh whenever the latter needs a day off.

And have you read about the mainstream women’s fiction author who researched a planned adventure story to take place in Cambodia on her computer and at the library, only to have her home raided pre-dawn by the Feds, who suspected she was a terrorist?

She writes: They banged at my front door first, damaged it coming in, displayed weapons and threatened to kill my dogs. After that, imagine everything you’ve ever seen on TV, only worse… They took so much — computers, photocopier, files, books, discs, computer programs, CDs of the music by which I write, contracts, absolutely everything I had connected to the writing world. They took pictures off my walls, my office television, pens, a case of paper, postage stamps…”

It all comes down to civil liberties. They’re eroding, right before your very eyes. Haven’t been in the line of fire yet? Want to believe it’s not real if it hasn’t touched you personally? History has scores of examples of people like you.

Have you ever wondered what all those Jews in Warsaw must have been feeling the morning they woke up to find their ghetto surrounded by a high wall topped with a barbed-wire fence? I think about that sometimes. At what point did the European Jews forfeit their ability to push back? Was there a period where they could have used their considerable social, financial and political influence to stem the tide of Nazism, or was it all a backroom fait accompli before the swastika ever saw the light of day?

Maybe we’ll get to find out for ourselves.

Peace,

Jon Anne