Yeah, I saw Holy Joe on the news, who hasn’t… Hell, I even saw it on the Daily Show but if you haven’t….take a look at this guy:

Hmmm, let’s filter through the typical bullshit…I think he hit all the usual points…umm, “Time of War,” and “National Security”, yeah, can’t forget good ol’ National security and let’s see, what else..oh yes, “the President would never just take over the internet…” right, right…good…good…okay, and “To my friends in the internet community, trust me…” Yep, yeah…anything else? Oh yeah…”Look, China can take over their internet and I think we should have that power too…”

Oops.

What the hell?

China?

Did you really want to go there? China, okay…alright, I guess I just wasn’t aware that China was a place we were aspiring to be like these days… you know, with their limits on free speech, their torture of prisoners, the way they round-up activists before protests and how they control the news, oh…and then there’s the the mass pollution and destruction of natural resources for profit…yeah, all that for short term gain at the expense of any sort of future…

Oh.

My bad…okay, so China it is…

I guess we now do aspire towards the real red states…

I suppose I just didn’t think you Washingtonians would actually admit it, what with all that patriotic stuff that positively bubbles the red-white- and-blue from your tear-ducts over your oil spill, I guess I thought this might be some “oops” kinda moment, kinda like Joe Barton at the hearing the other day…with his apologies…until he was made to apologize for his apologies…spineless, so spineless…even if you’re an idiot like Barton I can respect someone who takes a stand, no matter how much I might disagree…but then when you apologize for your apology cause the GOP thumped ya on the head…bad dog, bad dog…ass…but I digress…

China…(but what were you saying about socialized medicine last year? Oh, nevermind.)

Okay, China, well thanks for clearing that up Joe, so now you propose us a Kill-Switch Bill for the internet.

Nice.

Well, I disagree even if China does have it, our aspirations be damned. I’ve done some thinking about this, and it would appear my disagreement comes from a basic philosophical difference, Joe.

Trust.

You seem to think I should trust the government and its intentions…

Well, that’s a point of view but I have another…in a nutshell, bite me.

This is what I should trust, and this is only one situation, one issue:

1. The government colluded with British Petroleum to minimize damage estimates on the current oil spill.

2. The government is allowing British Petroleum to keep the press away from the oil spill in the gulf. Sure, the White House Press Secretary, Alan Gibbs trots on out and says this simply isn’t true, but when CBS has videotape, when a weekly publication reporter with credentials is told to leave and then interrogated by a BP official, and then followed by the police for ten miles through South Louisiana…um…lies, lies, lies…

3. The Secretary of the Interior, Salazar says the Mineral management Service is reformed, yet it is still run by Bush cronies who refer to it as Bush’s third term…whose lax regulations and rubber stamps lead to oil spill…more lies.

But, we’re supposed to trust the government.

Better question, why does this jack-ass think we should trust the government at all, because he said so? Sorry man, the “because I said so,” reasoning stopped working for my dad when I was four, and he was my father. You’re some strange stranger from Connecticut I don’t know personally, so I’m certainly not going to take your word for it. My question would be… what conceivable reason do I have to trust your government on anything? Didn’t we just spend the past eight years being lied to by some rich kid from Texas?

Trust?

No.

No way, not on your life, Joe.

Oh man, but this sideshow has so much more to offer…let’s get to the other reasons why this whole two minute statement is nothing more than spam roadkill on the way to Guantanamo.

Every time I hear a politician say the words, “National Security,” it makes me want to lose my shit. There has been so much done to us (not for us), as a country in the name of National Security over the past ten years that it’s hard to keep track of it all. Domestic spying, torture, the Patriot Act, Iraq…all in the name of the national security holy book so say your prayers. We got us the holy book of no-fly lists, the new testament version of the attempt to keep records of your reading materials in public libraries, internet monitoring, infiltration of activist groups by the FBI, protest zones around political conventions…National Security. Some people in this country would be glad to hand over the car keys, the bank accounts, their ability to read what they liked – all for the ability to keep their desperate homes for one more desperate year, oh…and to keep the cable on, but I’m not one of ’em…and I doubt Joe is either.

The internet is information. Joe likes to say that this is about maintaining electrical grids, about keeping hospitals up and running and saving the infrastructure of our country…and that may be very well and good, but he goes on to say that the President would never take over the internet. Oh, of course not…is this another matter of trust? Well, you can go to he…never mind. Back in 96, that Clinton guy signed into law the Telecommunications act of 96 – and what this act did was to consolidate media outlets into one hardened, unreadable ball of mainstream drudgery. This act gave us Clear Channel, it’s what led to the shrinking of publishing outlets, the closing of newspapers…all the mergers that have placed our information sources into the palms of three or four mega-corporations. Viacom? Yeah, that’s one…General Electric…another…and then the US Postal Service went and raised the bulk posting rates which put a lot of small market magazines out of print (G W Bush did that one)…point is, it’s getting to be that the Internet is the only source of information if you don’t happen to buy into the bullshit you’re being sold by Burger King, Fannie Mae, Halliburton and Kraft. Yeah, that Internet Kill-Switch Bill could be pretty handy, especially as Joe says, “in times of war,” but last I checked that time is now, has been for eight or nine years and against such a vague enemy it will never be fully contained, thus we are in a time of perpetual war…ahh, perpetual war…is this the new American Dream…if we have to fight them, we don’t have time to fight for whatever we have left?

Oh, and then Joe refers to his “friends” on the internet…

Sorry, you glad handling grandpa…you ain’t my friend.

You’re some sleazy old man that would sell out his own party because they hurt your feelings, sell out health care while claiming you aren’t…because, oh, I don’t know, the majority of insurance companies are in your home state of Connecticut.

God!

Asshole!

I really hate when politicians use terms like “friend” so loosely, it’s one of the many reasons I loathed John McCain so much…after listening to him say “My friend…” at the beginning of any response during one of those debates, Christ… a couple hundred times…man, all I wanted to do was find a puppy to kick…

But I digress…

Again, philosophical points….Me and Joe…Joe and me…here’s the basic difference:

You either trust the government to protect your best interest, or you don’t.

You either believe the president would act with restraint, or you don’t.

You either believe in having your rights stripped away in the name of National Security, or you don’t.

In other words: either you’re an American with a solid understanding of history – and the true intentions of the founding fathers, of the reasons why they wrote our constitution…

Or you’re Joe Lieberman…

Go on, trust me…