Can't Spy on Me Damn It!

The best stories are the ones that end with the lone renegade standing up to an unjust system. The hero, or anti-hero, stands in the face of opposition with nothing left to lose, death is the worst that could happen to them and they don’t fear it anymore, they let the ax fall and when the dust settles, the world is a better place.

This scenario happened Thursday when an accomplished judge named Anna told the Bush Regime that they could no longer wiretap residents of the U.S. without a warrant. The Bush Regime hand-in-hand with the National Security Agency has been doing wiretaps into phone lines, computers, cell phones, and G-d knows what else to gather, what they call, “anti-terrorism” intelligence. As a scholar of George Orwell, I’m calling bullshit on their line about using spying to make us safer, as nothing more than one of the three party slogans from 1984, “Freedom is Slavery.”

The funny thing about this situation is the lone renegade, the aforementioned low key judge named Anna. What the Regime knew about her was that she was a mild mannered lady who had done several important rulings in instances where it was corporations vs. people. They probably knew that she ruled in favor of the people nearly every time, and I’m sure they knew of her high profile activities during the Civil Rights Movement, but I guess our favorite Regime assumed that Judge Anna softened in her maturing age…wrong. She gave a very broad definition citing the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution protecting speech and privacy and in her 43-page opinion gave George W. a legal bitchslap by letting him know he overstepped his bounds.

Of course those neocon fucks are going to appeal to the Supreme Court, which they’ve lined with their lap dogs, so the Orwellian spy contingent might end up back in business before the end of next year. Unless we all head to the polls in November and clean house, then maybe we can begin to talk impeachment again.

Speaking of impeachment, and getting back to the renegades, isn’t it ironic that the Regime assumed that Judge Anna would fold, the same way they assumed Ken Starr would get Susan McDougal to lie about the Clintons’ involvement in Whitewater back in the 1990s. It was nearly the same scenario, they had a Southern socialite who appeared to be someone that they could bully, but what they didn’t know was that Susan was Jewish and her mom was a Holocaust survivor. Susan spent so much time in prison, because she refused to play the neocon game and lie no matter what they tried to do to break her. When asked why she wouldn’t just tell Ken Starr what he wanted to hear, she said that her mother told her flat out, “I stood up to Hitler, and you can stand up to them.”

Not only do these assholes need to do better research when it comes to people they assume they can push around; they need to also stop arriving at the assumption that women are an easier mark than men when it comes to bully tactics. Women give birth to nations and are far more influential in instilling values and attitudes in children even if there are fathers in the picture. Go into nearly any household and ask everyone who runs the place, and they will usually point to mom. The whole “behind every man is a great woman” saying isn’t bullshit, and time and time again throughout history, women have proven themselves to be far stronger opponents. Yet, these neocons see women as they want to see them; little suburban housewives who consult their husbands on every little decision and take a job in order to keep from getting bored. They see aspects of women’s lives such as career, finances, and relationship status as disposable, and refuse to see women as they actually are.

Maybe this is a good thing. If the neocon right wingers don’t see women as a threat, then they won’t expect us to stand up to them, which means we can take them by surprise. While they are off wiretapping every Muslim, citizen or Visa holder, as well as all of their corporate competitors (c’mon you know all of Halliburton’s competition is hearing taps in their phones right now), us ladies can begin emailing each other and making plans for takeover in 2008. What do you say grrrls, we can be renegades, too, and they’ll never see us coming!