Freedom free USA

I love science fiction but lately reality in the USA seems like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. The talented Phil in Radio Free Albemuth was expressing a feeling I and countless hidden others are feeling right now. I can even imagine bloggers like Radio free writing something similar to the following after Iraq has been wiped off the map, Iran has been conquered in the war on terror which has moved on to the home front while most Americans still believe they're free. We only need to subsititute the year 1968 with 2005, F.F. F with G.W.B, the dreaded Aramchek for an Arab terrorist or Al Qaeda, and the reference to Vietnam with...well, you get the picture.

From Radio free Albemuth

The human being has an unfortunate tendency to wish to please.

I was in effect exactly like those captured Americans: a prisioner of war. I had become that in November 1968 when F.F.F got elected. So had we all; we now dwelt in a very large prison, without walls, bounded by Canada, Mexico and two oceans. There were jailers, the turnkeys, the informers, and somewhere in the Midwest the solitary confinement of the special internment camps. Most people did not appear to notice. Since there were no literal bars or barbed wire, since they had committed no crimes, had not been arresteed or taken to court, they did not grasp the change, the dread transformation, of their situation. It was the classic case of a man kidnapped while standing still. Since they had been taken nowhere, and since they themselves had voted the new tyranny into power, they could see nothing wrong. Anyhow, a good third of them, had they known, would have thought it was a good idea. As F.F. F told them, now the war in Vietnam could be brought to an honorable conclusion, and, at home, the mysterious organization Aramchek could be annihilated. The Loyal Americans could breathe freely again. their freedom to do as they were told had been preserved.


Now what happens if you don't do as told?

To the tune of Guantanamera, the Wycleff Jean version.

Guan.tano.mobayra
is where you gon' disappeara
If you write the word Al Qaeda

Ok I'll stop. But we've been freedom free and will continue to be for a long while yet in this science fiction like reality.