Yikes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be away from the blog this long. Expected to be back with you by Sunday afternoon, but each time I hoped to sit down at the computer, chaos piled on the chaos that was already piled on top of the chaos.<\/p>\n
And that on top of an Internet connection that’s extremely sketchy and drops entirely every five or 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
So give me a couple more days to really get coherent, please. By Wednesday I should also have a functioning ‘Net connection, too. Knock wood. Cross fingers. Throw salt over shoulder. Burn incense to the technology gods. Whatever it takes.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
But clearly police states hither, thither, and yon have stormed on apace in my absence. Or should I say stumbled and bumbled on. Egypt’s new “democracy” is turning out … interesting (not to mention knee-deep in blood).<\/p>\n
And now, on a smaller scale but with similar intent, intelligence, and finesse, we have Britain (aka Adorable Little Sock Puppet) “detaining” Glenn Greenwald’s partner<\/a> under the auspices of a “terrorism” statute. <\/p>\n Yegads. All these years the U.S. and its client governments have had the media on their side even when everybody else was turning against them, and what do they go and do? What<\/i> do those morons go and do? Attempt crude and obvious intimidation of one of the world’s best-known journalists. Who also happens to be a member of the GLBT community. Just because he reported the truth about their illegal “security apparatus.” Oh yeaaaahhhh, that takes brains.<\/p>\n And clumsy lies, of course<\/a>. (And how do you like that name for a professional White House deputy liar? Josh Earnest. Couldn’t have done better in the irony department if they’d hired Dudley Do-Right<\/a>.)<\/p>\n But then, this is why freedom ultimately wins. Because power is DUMB.<\/p>\n Since my brain is currently of the same calibre (albeit vastly different makeup) as your typical government security agent, I’ll let friend S. (who emailed) do the ranting for me:<\/p>\n Some numbskull decided that hassling Glen Greenwald\u2019s spouse would be a good idea. Under the UK\u2019s all-too-aptly named Terrorist Act, the thugs can kidnap someone for up to 9 hours before filing charges or releasing \u2013 no evidence or basis for suspicion is required. Some sources claim that it is a criminal offense to refuse to co-operate with questioning. All agree that access to a lawyer is denied.<\/p>\n They held him for 8:55. It has provoked a firestorm from within and without the UK government. No one pretends that it is anything other than the UK acting as puppet for the US government.<\/p>\n They have made things far, far worse for themselves. It took some major tone-deafness to pick on a gay partner of the most prominent journalist in the world, during a period of intense discussion both about overreach by spy thugs AND about Russia\u2019s anti-gay laws and the advisability of Russia\u2019s hosting the Olympics. Stephen Frye has called for the IOC to halt the games, going straight to the Hitler argument. That particular pit of corruption would never do anything so principled, but the topic is hot.<\/p>\n Now they will have the UK parliament as well as US congressthings who can smell votes even better than they scent blood in the water. Greenwald was no friend of the UK government; now he is their enemy. Look for renewed energy in disclosing the most embarrassing documents possible. He\u2019ll have plenty of fresh help from UK and Brazillian journalists.<\/p>\n