Saturday, January 7, 2012

The Forbiden Journal Pt 1


By the year 2010 of our Lord Jesus Christ, human civilization had reached its peak. Signs of man’s majesty and power dotted the landscape, and the great nations of the world began to expand beyond the borders of our atmosphere, proclaiming to the cosmos that we were the new gods of the universe. But ahead lay a violent and abrupt collapse, as the knowledge which once allowed humanity to tame nature turned on its masters and foolishly ate from the tree of knowledge once more. Cities burned while the complex and sophisticated technologies of the world hurtled into the dark abyss of time, as mankind struggled to survive through the long twilight years that lay ahead…

Sometime in the Distant Future
The plains of central Nebraska.

The grass swayed, as the wind blew across the wide expanses of the Great Plains. Black birds circled overhead searching out the carcass of recently dead animals to eat. Grass grew every direction consuming all else. Not a single tree or hill in sight, just the wide open prairies of what once was the American frontier. Alice sat on the back of her horse, a strong wild stallion named Bren who was given as a gift when she turned ten, and admired the simple beauty before her. She wore a buffalo skin coat with moccasins to cover her feet and a beaver skin hat mother made her on her thirteenth birthday. Alice loved the beauty of the plains. The endless fields of grass that swayed like dancers in the summer’s breeze, the cloudless skies, the lack of human devices to contrast with the simple spender that was Mother. This was her home, the only place she ever knew, and it was beautiful.
Alice was seventeen, born to the Marshal tribe of the Great Plains, the oldest and most renowned of the western tribes. She was, in many ways, the bane of the tribe. Even at a young age she developed, much to the concern of her father, a great desire to learn of the past, to seek out the mysteries that were the ruins of the old world. Since she was a little girl the desire to know more grew like a fire within her to where even the laws of her father’s people could not dissuade her from the quest.
 “Knowledge is what led our ancient fathers to wars and destruction. They bled Mother of her gifts, violated her as a despicable man may take a woman by force. Knowledge, and the power to turn it into weapons of destruction, is what brought about The Fall,” Elder Franking once told Alice’s class, “this tribe has been at peace since the last great war because we have forsaken the old ways. The ignorance of our species is in the best interest of all.”
Off to the west a herd of Bison grazed peacefully, turning the green fields into a carpet of brown. Alice heard from the tribal elders that in the days of the old world, the old ones hunted the buffalo into near extinction.  She never quite fully believed that though she suspected it may hold a hint of truth -as all great lies do. How could anyone destroy the bison? And with what? There were just too many. Millions of them roamed across the grasslands searching for food and water driving all to flee before them.
They were the masters of the earth, not the wolf or the bear, certainly humanity. Humans merely survived on the land, while the buffalo dominated it. It was that way since the day Alice was born. It was that way during the time of her father, and his father, and his father before that. She assumed that even back in that far away time when Marshal lay the foundation for their way of life, that it must have been the same way then too. To think otherwise was just… well, unimaginable.
Alice turned away from the herd. Although they were peaceful creatures, buffalo were known to stampede when they felt threatened; she didn’t want to give them any reason to think her a threat.
Turning away she rode into the distance, allowing Bren to sprint as fast as his strong legs could carry them. Miles of endless grass and flowers passed by without a second glance as they rode onwards towards their nameless destination, following the sun perhaps, the Father of life, to reach the place where He lived with Mother.
Gazing forward she saw in the distance a large pole poking through the ground like a mole stumbling out of its hole as the winter ended. Though she could not yet make out just what it was, its presence in these plains perplexed her. No other tribe was supposed to be living in this land, at least not at this time of year, and the nearest forest was many miles to the east near the old uins in Amha.
“What could it be?” she mumbled and asked Bren to ride towards it.
Upon reaching it Alice dismounted and examined the pole. It wasn’t anything special, just an old piece of rotting wood sticking through the ground, though how it managed to get there was the real mystery. Even if another tribe passed through this area, they would never leave a sign of their passing. To stain Mother in such a way was blasphemies. Alice knew none of those small minded tribal leaders would ever tolerate such a thing. So how did it get there? Alice removed her knife from its sheath and cut away the grass surrounding the pole. As she did she noticed many smaller poles sticking through the earth, their tops covered by the tall grass. Excitement impulsively rushed through her brain. She knew what this was. These were the remains of an ancient home buried underneath the surface and thus unseen by the Burners. She drove the knife into the ground and dug, trying desperately to find some relic from the ancient world.
Suddenly the ground beneath her gave way and she fell into the darkness below. Too surprised to scream, she grabbed desperately at whatever she could find only to have them too fall away into the pit. A moment later she struck the ground, covering her face for protection against the debris that fell upon her.
“Ahh,” she winced in pain as a log fell on her left arm. Though it hurt, Alice knew she hadn’t suffered any serious injury. A blessing, considering no one knew where she was.
She rose to examine her injuries. Though her ankle hurt and she had some trouble breathing, she knew she’d be all right. The hole wasn’t very deep, maybe the height of two men standing on one another’s shoulders, though looking around she could see that it was much wider than she thought. To her right she could see the crumbling remains of a flight of stairs leading further into the ground. 
“Bren,” she called as he peered curiously into the hole, “can you stay there for me? I’ll be right up, I promise.”
He snorted to show his acknowledgement. Alice tore a piece of her shirt and wrapped it around a dry piece of wood she found on the floor, lighting it after a few minutes with her flint. Shadows stalked her as she navigated her way past fallen beams and broken steps down the long passageway into the earth.
The passageway opened fifty steps down into a large room. The floor slanted towards a large metal podium that stood facing several rusted chairs strewn across the ground haphazardly as if shaken by an earthquake. Most of the roof was still intact except for the far corner where the ceiling was partly collapsed. A small sliver of day light reached into the hidden tomb. On the wall behind the podium a large disc hung with a picture of an eagle engraved inside it, a quiver of arrows and olive branch grasped within its talons, the words “Seal of the President of the United States” written around its edges.
“Whow,” she whistled and gave a huge grin, “this place is amazing.”
Allowing her childish curiosity -as the Elders might say- to overtake her sensible caution, Alice made her way down the slanted floor and up the concrete steps onto the stage. Wooden floorboards creaked underneath her weight like neglected children wanting their mother’s attention as she gingerly tiptoed over discarded shoes and fallen beams towards the monolithic stand. Roaches scurried around her feet as she proceeded.
Something atop the lectern caught her attention. A large metal box covered with rust and dirt. Carefully she ran her fingers around its cold edges. The box was sealed. Writing chiseled on its outside was broken and hard to read at first in the dim light. Alice traced the words with her long fingers and read through touch its message.
“To whom it may concern,” it read crudely, as if whoever held the foresight to create this message lacked the equally important foresight to be sure his handwriting was legible, “within this crate lies the only text of our species history as it was after The Flash. The combination for the lock is 6687520.”
Alice found the locking mechanism intact and rotated the numbers to their correct positions. A hiss emitted from the container as the vacuum seal which protected the priceless treasure inside broke and the lid popped off. Inside was a white bag, also sealed, through which she could see the outline of a very large book. Excitement cursed through her veins. Such gifts were rarely seen in the prairie these days as the Burners, at the behest of the tribes, long ago scorched the earth of any remnant that could lead their world back into an age of enlightenment. Even the very roads which once connected the now gone cities of the plains to the forbidden cities to the east and the west were pulled from the ground and buried. So thorough was their obliteration that even the sight of a lone post in the middle of an open field, such as the one that led her to this place, was extremely rare. Before today as far as she was concerned there were only three other books in existence. Now there were four.
Though she could barely control her excitement she dared not take her rare gem from its protective box within the confines of this dark and foreboding place. Obviously the person who left it here, sealed against the elements and protected from Burners and Elders inside this room, thought it important. She stared once again at the pair of old discarded shoes lying without an owner on the ground at her feet. Did they belong to the person who left the box? Was locking this book away the last act of a dying man desperate to preserve what he thought most dear? Perhaps it was, and if so she would not desecrate that act of bravery by removing his work from its protection anywhere but in Father’s light.
She made her way down the concrete steps and past the fallen chairs into the stairwell that led her back to the sunlight outside. Though the hole was deep the walls were pocketed with holes with which she found she could easily scale it and climb out. Bren waited for her as she ascended to the surface, metal box carried securely under her arm.
“Hey boy.” She patted his nose gently when he nuzzled against her arms. “Thanks’ for waiting; I wasn’t too long was I?”
He snorted and shook his head, not at all.
“Want to see what I found?” she placed the box on the ground and quickly entered the code into the combination lock.
            Good thing the elders don’t hate numbers as much as they hate words, she thought cynically. Those idiots had no idea she knew how to read, much less recognize a combination lock or a book when she saw one. The lid popped open again and she removed the bag from its case. To her surprise there were actually two books contained within the clear bag, one large hard bound book and a much smaller one on top which said “personal notebook” on its cover. A name, Dustin Enters, was written on the front. Alice broke the seal and lifted the contents into Father’s light. A note fell to her feet as she drew the books into her hands.
            “Look Bren,” she said, “he left us something.”

        Hello.
        Though I do not know your name, my deepest thanks go out to you. Inside this box are the only two written histories known to be in existence of the time between the Flash and the current state of affairs as of the year 57. Hopefully you are not a burner, though if you were undoubtedly these words would never be read.
        Inside are two books. One is the Journal of a boy who survived The Flash only to die several months later during the sickness that proceeded it. His name was Dustin Enters of Papillion Nebraska who’s story, I believe, deserves to be read and remembered by you the reader and those to whom you tell it.
        The other, longer book, I wrote. I was born shortly after The Flash and so did not witness that tragic event, and so my story cannot adequately capture the mindset of those who survived it. I survived the plague that followed, however, and the years of chaos that led to the last great war and the decay of human intellect which followed it. I’ve done all I can to save the species and the legacy of our forefathers for future generations, though these efforts have been met with failure. I wrote my book not so that the history of our modern would will not be lost but also so that someday future generations may be inspired by the ideals and accomplishments of the old world. I hope to bring to light the lie that it was their knowledge and wisdom which caused the downfall of our species and the decay of our planet. I have no way of knowing how long it’s been from the time of this writing to when you found this box, but if present circumstances persist I can only assume you know little to nothing about The Flash, have been fed lies about the plague that followed, and brainwashed through years of conditioning into accepting a false reality as to the nature of the last great war. It is a wonder you are able to read this at all, if indeed you can.
        My name is Samuel Whitecoff and I would like to tell you the true story of our past. Thank you for reading.


Alice held the note in her hand, savoring the feeling of real paper against her skin and read the words over and over as to not miss any detail. The larger book, the title on its face simply reading “Our History,” was far thicker, and its words far smaller, than the smaller journal. Very little was passed from one generation to the next except for the practical arts of tent building, basic farming, hunting, taming horses, and other such activities. No information existed of the tribes history passed its founding, non except for the old could recall the names of past elders, even the passage of time was left unmarked by those desperate to erase mankind’s past from the minds of its youth. It drove her crazy not knowing how long ago The Fall took place, if it were a millennium ago or only a couple generations. The passage of years was tracked so parents could know the ages of their children and note their ascendance into adulthood, but an overall record of the years was not only neglected but forbidden.
She lifted the small notebook from the bag and opened its front pages.

Property of Dustin Enters, 518 Juniper Drive, Papillion Nebraska. If this gets lost don’t bother giving it back, I don’t want it.

Alice stifled a laugh and turned the page, ready to read whatever this Dustin Enters wrote.

October 22 2009.
Dear Journal.
Today my parents bought us a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog, but my dad never let us have one. He says he doesn’t think we’ll take care of it or take it on walks or clean its poop, but Aunty Lulu told him we would. We wanted a big dog like a Golden Retriever or a Pitt Bull or a Bulldog, but dad says their poop is too big and he doesn’t want to clean it up. So dad got a Sheltie. She’s kinda like a Collie but smaller. She’s really cute, I wanted to call her Faith but dad named her Lady instead. I like Faith better, but Lady isn’t a bad name. Dad says he picked her because she was the strongest out of all the puppies there, and that no other puppy could survive me and my brothers.
Anyway, Lady is really cute and I can’t wait to play with her. She’s getting her shots right now but when she’s done she’ll be coming home to live. Me and dad made her a doggy door so she can go outside and use the bathroom whenever she wants.
I’ll talk to you later journal. Bye.

The passage ended there.  There was a lot left in the little book but Alice didn’t have any time to read through it just yet. She had to pitch camp and get ready for a night underneath the stars. She tucked the journal into her pocket and went to work.

***
Kent gazed at the grass lands before him. Father descended across the horizon, sending rays of light reflecting off the grass and casting the world into the darkness of night. Still his daughter did not return.  
“Where could she be?” he paced nervously back and forth outside his families tent.
“Calm down Kent” Julia spoke calmly through the open flap. She sat on the floor atop a deer skin mat mending her husband’s clothing, “she knows what she’s doing, you taught her well.”
“Ha! Taught her well. How can you say that with the way she rides off like this for days on end? Doesn’t say when she’ll be back, doesn’t take anyone with her, just rides off all alone without letting her parents know where she’s going.”
Julia rose and held her husband by his shoulders, smiling softly into his enormous blue eyes. He was a strong and handsome man with a thick black beard that covered most of his face. His role as Head Enforcer often gave him a sour reputation for being a cold and callous man. They didn’t know Kent the person though, just the stoic mask of a man dedicated to his work and indifferent to the trouble caused to those who broke the law.     Julia knew that he had a soft spot for his only daughter. When Julia was pregnant with Alice, nobody in the village expected her to give birth. She’d had three miscarriages in four years and it seemed unlikely that she would ever have a child. Julia remembered those days, when the thought of losing another child was enough to bring her to tears. But Kent was always there to help her through the months that lay ahead. Once Alice was born he immediately fell in love with her. He spent hours rocking his tiny baby, little bigger than one of his hands, until she was fast asleep. When she grew older he taught her to ride. One time she fell off the horse and he carried her home, cradled as if she were still a baby in his enormous arms, soothing her with sweet words of affection.
Julia knew that he would do anything for her . . . well, almost anything. There was one thing that Julia knew he would not do for anyone, not Alice, not Julia, not anyone. He would never allow them to get away with breaking a tribal law.  If Alice or Julia were ever discovered willingly disobeying the laws of the tribe, he would punish them as if they were total strangers. He wouldn’t enjoy doing it, no, but it was his duty to the people. Julia didn’t worry about any of that. She hadn’t broken any of the laws, and she was sure that Alice hadn’t either. Kent sighed.
“What if she fell off her horse?”
“Kent, she’s been riding since she was six years old. Stop worrying.”
He sighed once more.
“If she isn’t home by dinner she’ll have to fend for herself.”
“She took some supplies with her before she left.  She’ll be okay for a couple more days without hunting anything.”
Kent snorted in response. Julia knew that look in his eyes. It was the look he always wore when he knew she was right, but didn’t want to admit it. He was worried about Alice, but he knew that she, as Julia said, was more than capable of taking care of herself. What was one night out on the prairie?
“Come inside Kent. Dinners getting cold.”
Kent took one last long look over the Great Plains, saw nothing, and turned to follow his wife into the small tent they shared with one another.

***
Alice didn’t want to go back into the village that night, not with her new found wealth. Such an immense treasure was far too valuable to risk entering the village and being found out. They wouldn’t understand, they’d only take it, shame her father, and discipline her.  The law required that any adult found with a relic be banished, and sent to live in the ruins of the east. But her father was an enforcer, and she his only daughter. He wouldn’t give her the full punishment.
 Besides, she liked sleeping under the stars. There was something magical about lying amongst the tender softness of wild grass, staring into the dark night sky with its billions of stars all hanging from invisible strings like dolls from a puppet master. Such a beautiful sight never failed to remind her just how insignificant she was in the face of her Mother and Father. The bison were the masters of the land, the eagle master of the sky, the mole master of the earth. Humanity was master of nothing, a mere observer and borrower scavenging off the scraps Mother and her favored children allowed for them. Alice seethed in frustration, knowing full well it didn’t always used to be like this. Though they tried to keep the secret from the younger generation she knew quite well humanity once dominated the earth in such a way that Mother bent to its will, not them to Hers. She saw it in her travels outside of the tribal zones, saw what few ruins the Burners left behind in their zealotry. Humanity was once a great species, whereas today they seemed hell bent on mediocrity.
Man wasn’t master of anything, except death. No other creature that lived in the grass lands needed to kill to survive, or at least that’s what the elders taught, but Alice knew better. She’d seen animals kill one another for food, and she’d seen them kill for no reason at all. She never understood why it was so many believed what the elders said when they could clearly see for themselves that they were wrong. Such an infuriating notion that people would bask in the wisdom of the elders, “the great and noble elders,” instead of opening their own eyes to see the truth for what it was.
Alice laughed when she thought of the elders and all their so-called “wisdom”. They thought they knew everything about old times, but in reality she probably knew more about it than any of them. She, after all, could read their language. She, after all, had seen their ruins. The elders knew only what they wanted to know and discarded evidence to the contrary. But she had the writings of a boy who actually lived in the ancient past. Alice lit a candle, opened the journal, and read happily.

            December 11 2009.
      Dear Journal, my brother turns nine today. We got him an ice cream cake even though it’s snowing outside and bought him a new DS game. Mom let me help pick out the game, so I picked the new Pokémon game, I know he’s going to live it. We got balloons, streamers, a piñata, all sorts of neat things.
         
            Alice decided to skip a few pages. Though it was interesting to view the thoughts of an old one such trivial matters neither concerned nor interested her. Balloons, streamers, ice cream, these words held little meaning to her, and such perplexity led her to search out something she would understand. She read on.


            July 5th 2010.
      Dear Journal, Wormwoods almost here. Dad hasn’t been home in a while, he works at the Air Force base and says they’re working him really hard because of Wormwood. He might even miss my birthday if they don’t let him come back tomorrow. I won’t like that, but I know dad has an important job to do. He says Wormwood could be a threat and we need to be ready for when it gets here. Some people on the news say it might be an alien space ship. Isn’t that cool? Aliens! How neat. I hope they’re more like the Vulcan aliens in Star Trek and not like the ones in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The last thing I want to do is fight off an army of mindless alien zombies. If its Vulcan aliens maybe they’ll let us fly in their space ship and go to the moon. Maybe I’ll get to go to their home planet when I grow up. I’ll be the first to visit the Vulcan planet.
      We had a great 4th of July yesterday. Bruce came over with his parents and we shot some fireworks. I hit Emma in the arm with a sparkler. We chased her around the house for a little while until mom told us to stop. After the fireworks we went inside and played Left for Dead on my Xbox. Bruce isn’t the best player in the world so we died a few times, but that’s okay. He beasts me at Call of Duty and Halo, and I get him at Left for Dead and Madden.
      I’ll write back later journal. Bye.


“Hmmm, interesting,” Alice said as she placed the journal back into its plastic bag. She looked into the sky once more and smiled with deep content. The full moon was almost right above her head, shining down on her and sending sparkles of light dancing across the grass. She knew that Mother was at work moving the moon to where it needed to be. It was a good night to be alive.

***
                July 25th 2010.
      Their gone Journal. Everyone’s gone. I’ve been wandering around town for two days looking for someone but no one seems to be here. I don’t know what’s going on. There’s nothing on TV, nothing on the radio, the internet’s still working but nobody’s on it. Yesterday I saw a deer walk down main street and nobody shooed it away. I thought they were playing a joke on me at first but it’s been two days. I built a fort in the basement with blankets and pillows and when I came out the house is empty, a car ran into the neighbor’s house, everything’s a mess downtown. I was only down there for a minute so they couldn’t have climbed into the car and left me, and that wouldn’t explain why the TV and radio don’t work.
      I’m going to try and find someone tomorrow. I’m going to take dad’s car and drive around honking the horn, hopefully someone will hear it and come out. Never drove before, this is going to be fun. Hopefully the rest of town doesn’t look like downtown does. If it does I might have to use a bicycle instead. That won’t be any fun at all.

***

Alice woke up the next morning to the sound of buffalo moving off in search of better pastures further to the south. It was early morning and Fathers light sparkled magnificently off the tiny droplets of dew that saturated the grass. Alice rose from her sleep, yawning and stretching her arms. Bren stood a little to her left, grazing on the nice dewy grass. Alice stood up and looked around her. To her left the herd of buffalo hurried off into the distance sending a trail of dust into the air, just far enough as to not pose an immediate threat to her. She took a small chunk of smoked buffalo meat from her pocket and took a bite. She drank a little water from her water pouch to wash it down and stretched again. Breakfast finished, she turned and softly called Bren and smiled affectionately as he came trotting towards her.
“Thank you Bren thank you for allowing me to ride you,” she said when he reached her. “What do you say we go back home, ha? How would you like that?” Bren neighed softly and nuzzled against her arm. Alice laughed and through her hands around his thick neck.
“Well, let’s go than”
Bren lowered himself to the ground and Alice got onto his back. She tucked the books into a secret pocket on the inside of her coat.
“All right Bren lets go. Yeah!”
Bren sprang forward, his huge strides carrying him and his rider over the endless prairies.
***

August 8th 2010.
Dear Journal, things are looking better now. Sorry I haven’t written in you for a while. I’ve been living in a UN aid camp in Omaha for the last two weeks. I saw them flying around in their helicopters and they were yelling in their loud speakers telling people that they had a camp in Omaha where they were giving people food, shelter, running water, all sorts of things. Nobody seems to know what happened exactly but everyone here says they were inside when “it” happened. A British soldier here told me that Wormwood was an alien space ship after all and that the aliens abducted everyone and flew off. A preacher we call Prophet says it was the rapture, and the fact that it only happened in the America’s is a sign that the rest of the world is too full of sin. Another nurse told me Wormwood blew up and then everyone disappeared. Prophet says we need to give our lives to the lord or else God’ll open some seals and kill us all. Not a very fun guy to be around. I like hanging out with the soldiers instead. They talk funny and have fun stories to tell. One used to be in Iraq.
Some of the nurses and doctors have been acting pretty strange lately though. There was a man dying in the hospital tent and they flipped out. Nobodies been allowed in the tent since. Nurse Joy says it’s contaminated with something but not to worry about it.
Any way things are getting better here. There’s plenty to eat, hot showers, I have a bed of my own. I’ll write back in you later Journal. Bye.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The Phoney War on Terror


The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 was the worst day in American history this generation has ever seen. Though we’ve suffered terrible attacks upon this country in the past this was the first time since the War of 1812 where a foreign enemy managed to attack directly the homeland of the United States in such a devastating way. Over 3,000 people died on that fateful day. And yet it seems today that it is not the loss of life that is to  be 9/11’s longest lasting legacy but the perpetual war and totalitarian “security” acts passed by Congress it is used to excuse. Since that day the United States has been engaged in a worldwide war without end, against an enemy that defies definition, and without any benchmarks or concrete measuring sticks to gage how this war can be “won” or when it might be over.  

The term “War on Terror” is intentionally vague. At face value it means nothing, and by its very definition can never be truly won. If, after 911, we declared war on Al-Qaida, or on the Taliban, or even Osama Bin Laden, than the United States would have long ago declared victory and been able to return home in peace with its military and wealth largely intact. These would have been specific enemies which our intelligence agencies and our military could easily identify, target, and eliminate. Once the hostilities against these specific threats were concluded an adult and reasoned debate could then take place discussing the cause of the attacks and what can be done to prevent them in the future. If such a debate occurred we’d realize that America’s foreign policy for much of the last century played a heavy role in igniting hatred and resentment towards our country abroad and that a more humble policy might be in order to prevent further attacks on our soil and our soldiers. Most importantly, however, the incredible loss of life and treasure suffered as a result of this decade of war would have been avoided.

That never happened. Instead the tragedy of 911 was hijacked by our “representatives” as an excuse to justify the perpetual wars and infringements on our liberties that followed. Though the war in Afghanistan was justified as retaliation for 911 the focus of the war was quickly abandoned as the Bush administration shifted its attention to Iraq, a nation that had no ties to Al-Qaida, Osama Bin Laden, or 911, and posed no threat to the United States. While the invasion of Iraq took place, Osama Bin Laden, the real enemy of our country, was allowed to escape for another eight years.

911 truthers have been spouting the belief for years that the government caused the destruction of the World Trade Center in order to justify its war in Iraq and the infringement of our civil liberties, and though I do not believe this to be the case in the end the result might very well be the same. Iraq, an unnecessary, costly, and bloody war, did nothing to strengthen the security of this country. The only effect that was has on the country was the bleeding of our wealth and of our military. Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives later we’ve gained nothing from the war and are told that even though we’ve taken out this supposed “threat” it is necessary to sacrifice our freedoms even more. Apparently we are in more danger today than we were in 2003, and this despite taking out what the former administration saw as the top threat to our security. It would appear that they were wrong.

Recently the US Senate passed a bill by a vote of 93-7 authorizing the military, at the discretion of the President, to detain and hold indefinably American citizens merely suspected of supporting terrorism without a trial or formal charges. This, of course, flies in the face of our 5th and 6th amendment rights to a fair, public, and speedy trial where we are to be judged by a jury of our peers within the state we are being charged. This bill makes the mere suspicion of a crime enough to put American citizens behind bars for an unspecified amount of time. All in the name of the “War on Terror.”

But what does that even mean? How do you fight a war against a strategy? On an emotion? How can such a war be won, and how do you judge when such a war is won even if it can be? The plain fact of the matter is that our politicians knew exactly what they were doing when they propagated this phony war on an inherently vague enemy instead of focusing on the actual threat of Al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden. Terrorists become the new boogy man. No longer do we have Reds, or Japs, or Huns to fear but instead an unseen and undefinable enemy which we must sacrifice every semblance of American values in order to defeat. Never mind that one of the very corner stones of our society is the right to a trial. Our politicians would have us believe that in order to save our way of life against “terrorists” we must destroy that way of life. Never mind that one must be convicted of a crime before being sent to prison. Again, our politicians would have us believe that the only way to protect American values is to destroy them ourselves. War becomes Peace, Freedom becomes Slavery, and the liberties of the American people become cannon fodder along the way. Though terrorism does still pose a threat to the United States, the response to this threat has been a complete overreaction since the day we shifted focus away from Bin Laden and invaded Iraq. 911 did not warrant the unconstitutional and unjustifiable Patriot Act and the recent National Defense Authorization Act, it did not warrant the trampling of our civil liberties and the engagement of perpetual warfare against vague enemies that are impossible to defeat, and it did not warrant the war in Iraq.

In the past civil liberties, for better or worse, have been sacrificed during wartime in order to better prosecute that war. During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln suspended the right to a fair trial; during WWII Franklin Roosevelt threw thousands of Japanese American’s into prison camps without trial as well. As appalling as these acts were they were made under the assumption that once hostilities were over, than these liberties would once again be returned. Fortunately, they were. No correlation between those wars can be made with the current War on Terror. With both the Civil War and WWII a clear, easily defined enemy was identified and the terms of victory made clear. The War on Terror, on the contrary, is being waged against an enemy that cannot be defeated and defies all definition. It is a war that will end not upon the military victory of our armed forces, but upon the discretion of our politicians, and so no assumption can be made that the liberties sacrificed today may ever be returned. What liberty we give up today we could end up never enjoying again.

The standard by which a country is to be considered as success or failure is not upon the power of its military, the wealth of its central banks, or the prosperity of its economy. The standard of a great nation is to be judged by the freedoms its people enjoy. Every time the Congress passes a bill that infringes upon the very cornerstone liberties that made this country great we slip farther and farther into mediocrity. Ten years ago, on September 10th 2001, the idea of our Congress and President supporting the act of indefinite detention of American without trial would have been unimaginable, but as we’ve seen so long as our politicians evoke the name of our modern day boogy man they can justify just about anything. Forget that thousands more are killed on American soil every year as a result of gang warfare and common crime than from terrorist attacks. Never mind the odds of being the victim of a terrorist attack are astronomically small compared to the odds of being a victim of a serious crime besides terrorism. No, the terrorists are out to get you, and unless you give the government the right to detain you for whatever reason they want for however long they want, than the terrorists will win!

If this continues, and we are asked to sacrifice more of our rights on the altar of a false sense of security, than we as a citizenry will face a difficult choice; to continue under the illusion of liberty or to assert our natural rights, by force if need be, in order to gain them back. For one thing is clear; we cannot continue to allow the federal government to widdle away at our constitutional rights. If we do, than we shall wake up some day and find that the boogy man we were so afraid of was not the enemy we need fear the most, but an oppressive regime residing in Washington DC. That cannot be allowed to happen.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Civil War: Sincerely, Jacob

He lay prone in a trench filled with muddy water, eyes, nose, mouth filled with the blood grime of a blood soaked battlefield. Outside the safety of his trench the unmistakable pop of distant gun fire and the boom of supersonic aircraft as they flew by provided the background music for the sorry state of affairs this army private found himself in. Somewhere not too far away, in a muddle hole much like this one, peering eyes watched for signs of movement they were unlikely to get. Jacob didn’t want to die for his country, hell he wasn’t sure he was even fight for the right country, but when the feds came knocking on your door in the middle of the night with guns and conscription papers you pretty much didn’t have a choice. That was life in the good old US of A these days. He was lucky at least not to be attached to a UWG division; American’s had it rough working for foreigners.
                “Hey,” sergeant Walker nudged Jacob, “it’s starting to die down, if you want to get some sleep or write a letter go ahead.”
                “Sure, thanks sergeant.”
                A light drizzle pattered on his helmet and down and down his neck drenching his body. Those damn gortex pants and jackets they issued didn’t do a damn thing to keep him dry, they only kept the heat in when the sun game out and the humidity got bad. Fucking government issued gear. The ground was soaked from early morning thunderstorms which passed mere minutes before leaving behind only the sweet pitter patter of misty showers and darkling grey skies that at any minutes could open again and finish the job of making his motherfucking trench into a motherfucking in ground swimming  pool a reality. Hurray, just what he always wanted. Doubtless the mother fuckers across no man’s land had better trenches, better equipment, better com, better food, hell probably better weapons that weren’t left over from the War on Terror. Weapons that weren’t left over from the War on Terror; Weapons that weren’t twenty damn years old. Imagine that. The Europeans had modern weapons, the Free Staters had modern weapons, but the US Army had to make due. Real fucking good Uncle Sam.
                He peered over the sagging edge of the trench wall, making sure not to expose himself much to enemy sniper fire. Thousands of strange of C-Wire filled the quarter mile long gap between the Union and Free State lines. Through the smoke and the haze of the desolation that clung to what once was a beautiful open plan near the Canadian border, Jacob could see a small speck of red and blue rising from the enemies position. The Free State flag, red and white stripes of the same patter of the US, flew in the dyeing wind defying the Union Army which bore down upon them. Though it maintained the stripes of the original 13 colonies the traditional blue with white stars in the upper left corner was replaced by a single star not unlike that of the Republic of Texas (or Texass as he liked to call it).
                “Damn Free Staters can’t even be original.”
                Burnt out husks of destroyed tanks and crashed helicopters littered the battlefield with their rusting remains hiding underneath them the bodies of the hundreds (thousands?) killed attempting to take the enemies position. Scraps of twisted metal tossed around like spaghetti poked their jagged entrails into the air like the fingernails of a giant coming back from the dead. And the smell… that scent of burning corpses was never going to leave this place even long after the war was over and gone. Napalming enemy positions (and the occasional “accidental drop on civilians) tended to do that. “Scorched Earth 2” the generals, most of them European, called it, referred to it at the debriefing, smiling as if the targets were so many ants instead of innocent American’s. Funny how foreigners thought referring to the tactics of one American general used against rebels two hundred years before somehow justified them, non-Americans, doing the same thing. Even if the Free Staters were wrong that didn’t justify killing civilians, did it? No, of course it didn’t.
                He crouched into the muddy trench once more and dug into his pocket for a notebook and pen. Though the paper was damp from the rain he could still wrote on it quite well.
             

   Angela, I am lost and need your guiding grace to help me now ease the conflict inflicted onto my mind and body. I didn’t resist my conscription years ago when federal agents came knocking on my door because at the time I felt it necessary to protect our nation from the influence of foreign and domestic enemies that then seemed to close in around us, only to find myself serving under the command of foreign general in a war to subdue fellow countrymen. They say they are leading a coalition in conjunction with American forces, but I know no American would order the atrocities against innocents I’ve seen on a daily basis since the war began. Even now I can smell the remains of Shreport jus south of here, not of ruining buildings or the normal residue of battle alone, but also of the charred remains of what once were its inhabitants. I do not know the given reason this town needed to be destroyed, but I do know no military forces were that at the time of the firebombing. No soldiers lay dead in its streets, no factories of war were destroyed, not a ruined tank or other piece of military equipment (besides the occasional hunting rifle ) could be found though we searched for hours for just such evidence. Only the bodies of civilians and their property.
        I find myself wavering from my previous conviction in the righteousness of our cause every time we advance, for though our leaders spread the lie that we would be greeted as liberators by a grateful populace all I can see on the faces of those we “liberate” is the sad destitute look of those who’ve been wronged. There was no “liberation” in their eyes when we marched down the streets of Edmonton, the people there did not cheer, they did not wave, they made no noise at all. Only the stoic cry of silence could be heard, that and the Polish marching band we brought with us to celebrate the occasion. There was a little girl there, maybe ten, maybe eleven, with curly blond hair and a dirty blue dress who reminded me of Mia. She stood by the road when we passed by, fir burning behind her cold green eyes, and fists clenched. I never saw such hatred before, not from enemy soldiers, POW’s, or even parent’s who’ve lost their children. There was nothing in that girls eyes but genuine unconditional hatred.
        Angi, I love you so much my heart aches for when we’ll see each other again. I cannot long endure this war; please write to me. This war may deprive me of the nourishment of life to which all men are entitled but it can never diminish the joy of your words. Say hello to the family for me.
                                                -Sincerely, Jacob.