Declassified

So much in the newspaper this week has made me splutter with outrage. I don't know where to begin...Cheney's decided he's not in the executive branch (and is instead some sort of imperial-Sith-lord entity unto himself)? Insane Ann Coulter is still making headlines for saying asinine things? These so-called "tough on crime" Republicans are screaming for the pardon of Scooter Libby? Someone continues to find "B.C." funny?

Perhaps angering me most of all this week was this declassification of the CIA materials known as the "Family Jewels," wherein it is now finally revealed that yes, the CIA did spy on journalists, students, musicians, actors, and people whose opinions did not jibe with the status quo. They tapped phones, sat in unmarked cars outside of houses taking photographs, and even drugged people with LSD without their knowledge. They planned assassinations, and carried some out. And, when Nixon was in office, they completed these acts under the direction of the commander-in-chief. And they're still not all declassified...pages and pages are blacked out, that they still can't fess up to.

See, what you may, or may not know about me, is that since I was born, I have been hearing ALL about these activities from my mother. ALL THE TIME. To the point where my eyes glazed over.

I never doubted - most of the time - that she was probably correct. But, when she or my sister or myself told others, they so often told us point-blank or insinuated that we were a bunch of paranoid conspiracy kooks. Of course our government wouldn't spy on us! That would be crazy!

What think you now, o ye complacent folks of yesteryear, now that you see for yourself that she was right, way back then? And have you learned anything? Do you remain complacent now, with Bush, Gonzalez and Cheney insisting that they have the right to tap your phone, imprison people indefinitely, and torture you if they decide they want to?

Do you still believe them? Have they suckered you into caring more about Paris Hilton than the desecration of our Constitution?

Now is the time for a revolution, folks. What say we rise up, and impeach these fuckers now? Who's with me?

(And, just in case, any CIA spook who reads this and doesn't care for my tone can suck on it.)