...tap tap tap... Is this thing on?

Know what? I took another hiatus. You can hardly blame me, though - it's kept me from commenting on the Presidential campaign and getting sucked into the war that's evidently going on over it. (Note: I don't really care at this point who's going to be the Democratic nominee - at least either way it'll be someone who doesn't make us cringe every time he/she opens their mouth.)

ANYWAY - isn't it adorable that this spent an extended time on the "Latest News" list over at CNN.com? I guess flag burning cements the "treason" label for Berkeley, even though all they did was tell the Marines they were unwelcome. Cripes, get out that "welcome" mat and put it in front of your house, folks, 'cause if you don't have one you're OBVIOUSLY for rounding your neighbors up and shipping them off to death camps. Sheesh.

And so we continue to equate militarism and patriotism in the stupidest way possible, deciding that if someone doesn't show proper subordination to the great and powerful Pentagon that they must, therefore, hate America, the flag, clean water, blue skies, baseball, hot dogs, and fuzzy puppies. (Being as, you know, they don't have puppies and blue skies in other countries, of course, much less flags.) The CNN.com comments on the original story are little jingo gems especially - the usual blather about how the military gave us the freedom that Berkeley "abuses" and how they should love it or leave it and how these people wouldn't get away with this in some furrin country what didn't love freedom as much as us! (Christ knows those Islamonazivik countries don't have protests.)

I mean, would someone PLEASE fookin' explain to me WHO the sainted Marines are exactly defending us FROM at the moment, anyway? Iraqis? Afghanis? Pakistanis? What country presents an actual threat to us that we need a Pentagon budget of half trillion dollars (NOT including, mind you, spending for Iraq/Afghanistan)? What threat is there of an actual Islamic invasion of the U.S. that bedwetters like the commenters seem to fear? Aren't our freedoms at the moment more threatened by our OWN GODDAMN GOVERNMENT than by foreign invaders?

I'm sure if I were to ask any of these lil' Sons of Liberty the above questions I'd get a guppy-faced expression, an exasperated sigh and a response of "YOU know- THE TERRORISTS!". Which isn't an answer. "Islamic fundimentalists" seems to be the closest they can come to an actual response, though the idea that, say, Iran would invade the U.S. is so outlandish even the clowns at National Review wouldn't suggest it. So we're stuck with a nebulous "THEM" that's out there somewhere, who plot to kill us all and that the Marines deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are somehow defending us against, therefore they must not be criticized. And we'll know we're safe from THEM when the folks in power decide that we are, and decide to tell us so.

If that's not fascism, folks, it sure as hell leans in that direction.