Kankakee Voices

Ever since G W bush was appointed by the Supreme Court via a lawsuit that stopped the vote counting in Florida to sit in the chair in the Oval Office, the way the government is suppose to operate has changed.

In today's America, the Government run by this administration and permitted by the lock step, ignore checks and balances Congress, keep secrets, ignore valid requests for sunshine on issues that effect us, and claim national security at every turn to keep requested documents in the dark. Even before 9/11. ie. Cheney's energy task force that detailed Iraqi oil fields and their sell off to private industry. But a hard fought court battle won by the White House guaranteed we the people would never know the full details. And what could possibly be in Presidents Reagan's and Bush 1's presidential papers that W felt needed to be kept from the American people and refused their release? They wouldn't happen to have anything to do with Iraq would they? This executive order was also enacted before 9/11.

So with the current government activities securely under lock and key, this administration moved rapidly to open up the records of, you guessed it, we the people.

With our eyes still filled with tears in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, our government moved swiftly in the dead of night to protect us. The bush Administration had Congress pass the new armored iron gate for Americans, the Patriot Act.
Americans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. They rallied behind bush as if to be saying, "I'm not a terrorist, go ahead, search my bags, my car, my shoes, my library records, my medical records, so long as you are keeping me safe against the terrorists." I guess Americans needed their own personal assurance to prove to their government and neighbors that they indeed were Patriots and no threat to security.

It wasn't too long after all this, that our government taught us how to safely lock ourselves up in our homes with visquene and duct tape. We willingly gave up our tweezers, aerosol deodorant, knitting needles, disposable razors, Swiss Army knives, hair spray, or any personal use item a terrorist may use to hijack an airplane. We learned to stand obediently and quietly in long slow moving lines as our bodies are scanned by metal detectors and x-ray vision machines and our pockets searched by security personnel with a high school education be it at an airport or local museum.

We learned Who to call to report suspicious activity and what to look for. We were inundate with pictures of dark skinned, beard wearing men on the local news channels. We very willingly accepted and applauded the fact that our government now needed to lock people up in federal holding pens without charges in far away places to protect us. We were becoming such good Patriots. But our government told us there was more we must do to keep ourselves safe. And in June of 2005, our government did just that and it didn't even need the sushine of debate in Congress.

Beginning in 2008, we will all happily gather our papers together and head down to our local DMV to stand obediently in line and with a smile turn over a current photo ID, Soc. Sec card, birth certificate, and utility bill with our current address on it. The local DMV employee will then take possession of your papers and have them checked out. You will then be told you will be notified when to return to be issued your new Real ID card. No one knows how long it will take the individual states to have all of your information put into the National Database or how long the government will take to give your papers the stamp of approval. But you won't complain, because you are a true Patriot. You know that the government is only doing this to keep you safe and that tracking suspicious people that have been issued temporary IDs is necessary. But how will they be tracked? I have a theory.

In order to track those issued a temporary ID there must be a tracking system. Since your new Real ID card will be scannable, there will have to be scan points throughout America. Airports, train stations, bus stations, and perhaps even state borders. This way when Inga Jorgenson from Norway who is here photographing life in America, our Government will at all times have a good idea where she is as she moves about the country and when her temporary ID hits the expiration date they can nab her and either give her an extension or send her back to Norway. Or when the Jones and Smith family goes on a camping trip to a neighboring state Homeland Security will know it.

Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." How silly this seems in today's new Patriotic America, because terrorism requires it.

But I do have just one question. Should we re-write our National Anthem and replace the words, for the Land of the free and the home of the brave, with, "here's my caaard, scaan it pleeeas, for it's secuuurrity I craaaaave."

One last thought. As horrendous as a terrorist attack is, you can only be killed once, but you will live forever in tyranny and oppression from government.