and now a word from our sponsor...

I have always hated politics... in all its forms, from office politics (for which I was never any good) to national politics, where I must choose somebody to represent me from an array of names that mean nothing to me. For most of my life I have left politics to the politicians, better equipped to deal with the issues. I have refused to vote on so many occasions, claiming that my right to not choose was just as valid as any peer-imposed responsibility to choose. Besides, everyone I ever voted for in a national election lost... believe me, if you're running, you don't want my vote.

The fact that this is a lame excuse is beside the point. The truth is, I was an artist, too busy being creative to give a damn. So... why now a sudden interest in who's running the world? Because they seem to be going to hell in a handbasket? More probably because they're going to take me with them. One straw that broke this nun's back was the recent Senate vote that anybody not a citizen of the United States can be declared an "enemy combatant." A what?

An enemy combatant is anybody that the president says is an enemy combatant. We are talking George Bush here, not some statesman with a record for fairness and sound decision making. But that's beside the point. The fact that our country deliberately instituted checks and balances (no matter how imperfectly they function in reality) was because absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hitler gained that kind of power at a time when the German people were their most vulnerable. He preyed on their need for something (a scapegoat) to make sense of the losses in their lives. He used the Jews. "It's all their fault. If we get rid of them, our troubles will be over. Besides, they crucified our Lord."

Are we any different? We are using Muslims, Arabs, anybody who looks remotely like Osama bin Laden. Our president is preying on our fears of terrorist attack, picking names out of the wind. He's as crazy as Hitler. And for anyone who's checking, the Jews did not crucify Jesus, the Romans did.

An enemy combatant can be arrested and held for as long as authorities wish without any rights. They can stand naked in cold rooms and be beaten by interrogators. They have no right to see the evidence against them, no right to a lawyer to examine this documentation, and there is no appeal. This law does not sound like The United States of America, yet it was passed by sixty-five United States senators.

How could this happen? I must have been asleep at the wheel. Lots of Germans disagreed with Hitler, suspected he was mad, but were afraid to do anything, to say anything, with good reason. The Gestapo was right around the corner. If you listen carefully, you can hear the siren down the street. It could be coming for your neighbor.

God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love, and of a sound mind.— II Timothy 1:7