Fly the Flag Upside Down

It is time to send out the distress signals. Drag yourself away from the partisan battles of the moment. Drag yourself away from the latest congressional sex scandal. The US Constitution is being rewritten by bad law and executive fiat. W and the Republicans in Congress along with the acquiesence of Democrats in Congress have decided that it is okay for the president to decide what is and is not torture, to indefinitely jail whomever he declares to be an "enemy combatant" and remove from many of those we hold as alleged terrorists the ability to challenge the government's decision to detain them. They can challenge a conviction as a terrorist before a military court with limited rights at whatever time we bother to try them, but not whether or not they should have ever been held in the first place.

This is the debate from last week. We're on to sex scandals with salacious emails and instant messages now. Everyone look away. This will just be about nasty foreigners whose name we will never know widely. Why should we worry?

Simple. This is unchecked power. Unless the Supreme Court, increasily featuring fans of executive power, decide otherwise, no one can stop this. This is no "emergency" measure. This is the law of the United States. God protect the next US military or intelligence member captured by any enemy anywhere. The US government has decided to make your life more dangerous by making us exactly what our enemies say we our -- arrogrant, power-hungry and lying in our desire to spread "democracy." What democracy okays waterboarding? What democracy sends a Canadaian citizen to Syria to be tortured? It is now the United States of America.

Early this year a friend of mine was surprised that I didn't think post-9/11 US was at its worse. No, I said, I thought things would be worse than this. Now, they are.

To escape for a bit, I'm off tomorrow to my first ever October vacation in North Carolina. I'll update only if I feel I must. Look for more from me in a couple of weeks.