When intellectuals are terrorists

I had to double-check my calender today fearing that, in spite of the reassurances of modern convenience, we had slipped back to the 1950's. Alas, it is only the political climate in which we live in that is making a mad dash for the policy of yesteryear. Now don't get me wrong, I would be all for a return to a much more simple and quaint way of life where hard work and honesty ruled the life of the average joe. Unfortunately, the "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle is only a rose-coloured view of the reality that captured North America for nearly 20 years.

What has caused me to wax nostalgic, in a frightening, foreboding sort of way? Apparently intelligence analysts with the NYPD have determined that average joes, like you and me (I'm reading between the lines here!), are capable of becoming blood-thirsty, poison-our-neighbours, blow-up-building, terrorists. (All this without being elected to the White House! ) It seems that the new hotbed for terrorism can be found in "cafes, cab driver hangouts, flop houses, prisons, student associations, non-governmental organizations, hookah bars, butcher shops and bookstores," etc.

If the past is a good indicator of the future (and it usually is) that means that the treatment of Muslims that so many Americans, regardless of their religious stripes, have come to expect the White House to dole out, in the name of National Security, is now going to be meted out indiscriminantly on coffee drinkers, students, NGOs, meat-eaters and readers.

Now, since I personally qualify in 3, soon to be 4, (no I don't drink coffee and, yes, I can read!) of those categories, I fully expect that at some point the near future I'll find myself a resident of a Gitmo-like institution. We are already being slowly labotimized by mass media (have you turned on the television lately?), emotionally sterilized to the point that we are willing to accept any mindless gruel. That sort of rhetoric legitimizes global governments in ratcheting their aggressive "Anti-Terror" policies a little closer to the "Ruthless Dictator" level.

After realizing that this is, for now, only a consequence of living South (or from our vantage point in Windsor, North) of the border, I was able to breath a sigh of relief. Sure Windsor has a lot against it, but at least we can congregate and freely speak our minds, we can openly disseminate information, and we can eat meat -- and we can like it! So, take a moment and say thanks Windsor, thanks Canada -- you might be taxed until it doesn't hurt anymore, but at least we don't have George W. Bush for President.