Stardate 20020924.2348

(On Screen): I used to participate heavily at a site called MetaFilter, but starting with the 2000 election (where the majority of participants there seemed to support Nader) and then after the war began, it became stranger and stranger and I eventually decided that it was no longer worthwhile.

But I do lurk, now and again. Just for old times' sake, I sometimes check in to see if the inmates are still running the asylum, and my faith is never disappointed. They are. The consensus world view has been consistent ever since Bush stole the 2000 election. (You remember that, of course?)

The war is really about oil. Bush and Cheney don't really actually care about things like keeping our cities from being bombed; after all, that can't happen here. Rather, they're performing the largest hostile takeover in history (with extreme prejudice), so that their friends can operate Iraq's oilfields.

In fact, getting hold of Iraq's oil is so important that they're willing to sacrifice America's relationship with Germany, which has been the only European nation willing to stand up to its friend and tell America that the proposed war against Iraq is wrong.

It certainly can't be because a war is actually justified. The British government released its best case to explain why Saddam needed to be deposed, and it just isn't very convincing. (In fact, it's filled with lies. It says that Saddam used nerve gas on "his own people". It was actually Kurds.) No sane person would actually believe that a war is needed, so they must have an ulterior motive. They can only be after Iraq's oil.

One proof of that is that they're going to conquer Iraq, but they don't seem to care about Burma. Isn't it just as much of a human rights disaster? Perhaps, but it doesn't have any oil.

But Libya does, and it's going to be the next corporate acquisition right after Iraq.

All that fighting for corporate interests is going to require a lot of soldiers, of course (especially when they die in droves, sacrificed to thicken the wallets of corporate executives.) When they run out of volunteer cannon fodder, they're going to reintroduce the draft, just to augment their corporate military.

And it's all for nothing! We don't really need oil; we can do it all with alternate energy sources, like hydrogen.

But never fear, because at least Al Gore is brave enough to stand up and tell the truth: that we don't need to fight in Iraq.

None of the rest of us could do anything like that, because we now live in a police state, which will be managed for the benefit of big corporations (especially oil companies).

After all, one brave reporter who also ran a web log was fired from his job because of it. I mean, what proof do you need of the new repression?

I'm afraid our MetaFilterian friends wouldn't know a police state if it fell on their heads, or repression if it was shoved up their asses. But they might try looking across the Pacific, at one of those marvelous Socialist People's Paradises where there aren't any corporate devils running things, to get some idea what real repression is like. Here's a clue: it doesn't mean that people call you names or are contemptuous because of your silly opinions. It doesn't mean that they disagree with you vehemently. It even doesn't mean that you can lose your job because you're a writer who is moonlighting.

It means that you get arrested. It means you get charged with subversion. It means that you get given a brief trial, in secret, with the outcome predetermined. It means that you can go away and never come back.

That's the fate in store for Chen Shaowen, who was arrested because he posted articles on web sites outside of China which were critical of the government. He's been charged with "slandering the Chinese Communist Party." He is in extremely deep trouble. He's also a very courageous man, because he knew full well what he was really risking when he did it.

Or perhaps they'd be more happy with the way that Palestinians treat their dissidents, or people who are suspected of thinking dissident thoughts.

As long as the regulars on MetaFilter can post the kind of stuff they are, and as long as the only thing that happens is that people like me decide that they're deluded idiots, then they aren't living in a police state.

They may be surprised to learn that the First Amendment hasn't actually been repealed yet. But they themselves prove it. it protects the right of someone to prove through their public writings that they're paranoid fools. Despite posting this kind of drool for months, not one of them has heard that sharp knock on their door in the middle of the night which is so fami