You Never Suspect Vermont...

This morning, Senators in Vermont voted in a 12-9 majority to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. (see AP article) This brings a lot of thought to the forefront here on Planet Joon. Things like:

-Its about damn time.
-Why don't I live in Vermont yet?
-Could Ben and Jerry's get ANY better?
-Are the senators in Vermont being left out of the North American Union plan that conspiracy theorists on Planet Joon firmly believe is simply one step toward the dreaded One World Government, also known as (cue Ministry song) the New World Order?
-No, seriously. Its about damn time.

I hear you saying "Damn, Joon. That small list is a friggin mouthful". Yah, it is. But have I ever let you down in the past? No. So hear me out.

It is about damn time. Why in the HELL didn't anyone in any part of the government organize something like this effectively when the Patriot Act was signed? I will admit that at the time I was like many Americans. I was scared for my kids and had reached a sort of ambivalence about how our justice system worked. It irritates the shit out of me that while some sixteen year sowing his oats will get arrested for smoking a bowl behind the gym, some homicidal drug lord somewhere is avoiding arrest because somebody filled out the search warrant incorrectly. When the Patriot Act was signed, I was in many ways thinking, "Whatever works, man. It won't affect me, I'm just some random citizen who doesn't really do anything to put herself on the radar." Little did I know that by being that random citizen, I was just another sheep in the flock, allowing myself to be blindly herded. "Even if something was going on, what could I do about it?"Good question. We'll come back to that.

There was a lot about the Patriot Act that changed our rights, something we've really been taking for granted as of late. Christian right-wing America has spun things around so much that we are actually beginning to BELIEVE that Howard Stern and Imus should be kicked off the air because they say asshole things and have foul mouths, and as Helen Lovejoy says "What about the children?!"I'm beginning to think that Christian America can take any document and blur it to fit their beliefs. "Yes, the part of the bible that says gay is wrong is absolutely still relevant (leviticus 18:22). That's what god meant. But all the rules about not eating shellfish (leviticus 11:10), or working on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2), or having slaves (leviticus 25:44) is all just outdated and silly." and the same is happening with our rights. "The part of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that say Freedom of Speech is still relevant, but that's not what the founders meant. They didn't mean things that other people don't like. They meant you can have free speech as long as everyone else is ok with it. Yes, separation of church and state. Definitely. Except our church. This country was founded on God, right? One nation, under God, right? What do you mean that wasn't added to the Pledge of Allegiance until the 50's? So? And the pursuit of happiness doesn't apply to gays, as they are against our religion, the only real religion, and if we let them slip by people will start marrying their dogs because dogs can say 'I do' and sign marriage licenses."

I'm going off track here. For those of you with your heads buried in the sand, let's do a review of what the Patriot Act means to YOU. And I mean YOU. Not your Muslim neighbor or the guy with the turban at the sandwich place, or that person who keeps downloading the Anarchist's Cookbook and How to Build a Pipe Bomb from Common Household Materials. YOU.

-Section 213: This section makes it so that, should a search warrant against you be deemed necessary (this applies to any criminal activity, not just terrorism related), you do not have to be told ahead of time, or at any point, that you are/were searched or wire-tapped. Like many parts of the Patriot Act, this doesn't expire. Basically Big Brother is laughing at your phone sex and rooted for your girlfriend in your last argument.

-Section 206- Means that if someone being tapped by police for a crime uses the same phone or computer as you (be it at work, the library, or once in your home), the government can tap that phone or computer, without your notice. No warrant is necessary, and there is no regulation to make sure they are not abusing this privilege because the jurisdictions are nationwide. If your pothead buddy is under investigation, and he used your cell because his battery died and he needed to tell wifey he would be home in an hour, the police now have reason enough to listen in on your conversations on that line indefinitely. You'll never know unless they use the information against you. So tell Aunt Millie to keep her and her glaucoma having ass at home and stop calling you! Prank call! Prank call!

And then there's the New Patriot Act, or Patriot Act II. What this means to you is even broader. To YOU.

-Section 501- This means that if you engage in section 802 of the first Patriot Act (meaning that you show yourself to be a terrorist by doing "any act that endangers human life and is a violation of Federal or State Law") you are designated an enemy combatant, and can be treated as such. You'll see what that means as you read on. Basically don't tell your marchers to take to the street. Cars could run you over. That endangers human life, and dude, you are so busted.

-Section 201- This means that once you ARE arrested, the government doesn't have to tell anyone who or where you are. Ever. Like X-Files shit, dude. Only the cigarette smoking man wears Ray-Bans and kills your mother for asking too many questions.

-Section 102- Any information gathering, whether the information be illegal or not, can be considered spying for foreign countries. This makes news gathering illegal. Under this law, my find this information for you is technically illegal, and your bookmarking or linking it would be a punishable crime as well. Hehe. Suckers. I walked you right into that one.

-Section 103 is a big one, that we got to see in full effect when Hurricane Katrina turned New Orleans into gumbo. It says that the President can declare martial law (no, I didn't spell that wrong) without approval or proof that a state of war exists. Martial law is when there is no civil law; the military acts as the police, legislation and courts. You may be thinking "Well, they can arrest us, but eventually things will settle down and I'll get a fair trial, right?" Psh, shaw. Right. Our constitution says that the government can't hold us against our will without valid reason (also called The Writ of Habeus Corpus), but it also says that Habeus Corpus isn't in effect in times of "rebellion" or "invasions of public safety". Let's nutshell that, shall we? The President can call Martial Law, for no reason, and the government can then arrest you, for no reason.

In New Orleans, rioting, arson and widespread crime allowed martial law to be called. All the looters were attacking the mansions, and the mansion owners were protecting their homes by brandishing their legally registered weapons. Martial law overrode their constitutional right to bear arms and protect their homes and their lives, their guns were confiscated and they were arrested despite the fact they had done nothing illegal. Their own government left them powerless. Thanks, Patriot Act!

-Section106 means that when a government agent or agency searches your home illegally or with no permission, you can't do anything about it because it grants them immunity.

-Section 109 means that if you or someone you know is suspected of a crime, you are required to incriminate them with any evidence known to you. This section basically takes away the 5th Amendment right NOT to incriminate oneself, as well as the laws that protect spousal confidence. If you don't, you can be charged with contempt, and jailed. Again, this is illegal, which means you can be classified a terrorist, and be arrested, and the government never has to tell anyone who you are or where you went. Is this starting to sound fun yet?

-Section 410 means there is no statute of limitations for any terrorist crime, which, as you may remember, is any breaking of state or federal law. If they see a picture of you smoking pot 10 years ago, dude, you are so busted.

-Section 411 means terrorists acts are punishable by death. Please see above.

Are you beginning to understand now why President Bush signed the second Patriot Act into being in secret on a Saturday? It just screams 1984, doesn't it? "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength". Now where was I, before the PSA? Oh that's right. It's about damn time. Its about damn time that someone with some level of credibility stood up and said, "That's a bunch of bullshit right there. And I'm pretty sure they knew that at the time." I think of it differently. I think of it like "You knew damn well you were exploiting the fear of millions of people that it are supposed to be your sole goal in life to protect so that you could turn our democracy (which its not, by the way, its a republic) into a some kind Capatilist, Socialist, Communist, Christianist mutant. Fuckers." It took us a damn long time to figure it out, but now that we have, amen that at least one state in this country has the cajones to do something about it.

Why DON'T I live in Vermont? In addition to being the first state with enough brains to try to shut down the fascist regime that is the Bush Administration, it was the first in the U.S. to have, and keep, a civil union law for homosexual couples. And it's home to Ben and Jerry's, and if you don't love Ben and Jerry's than you simply aren't a real American. Real American's love ice cream. They love ice cream so much they become morbidly obese and start driving Hover-Rounds in the Wal-Mart while their overweight teenage daughter are impregnated by illegal Hispanic immigrants. Okay, maybe that's a little too far. Or maybe that's just my neck of the woods. I don't know. All I know is I love me some Ben and Jerry's and I seriously need to move East.

Could Ben and Jerry's get any better? Possibly, though few things can top Dublin Mudslide or Everything But The..., but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about here is that Ben Cohen, that's right, the Ben of Ben and Jerry's, is a huge activist and in fact founded the group True Majority, of which I am an active member. Ben Cohen was the man behind the infamous "Oreo Cookie video", and if you haven't seen it yet, check it out, it only takes a couple minutes to REALLY enlighten you about how your tax dollars will be spent this year. He uses Oreos to equate $10 Billion in government spending, and then stacks the Oreos up to show how the money is spent. As you might imagine it takes 42 Oreos to cover how much the government gives to the Pentagon (and that money doesn't even cover the cost of the Homeland Defense OR the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan). Lets put that relative to something, so you can see just how big 40 Oreo cookies are. The next biggest expense is K-12 education. How many cookies? For the whole country? All schools? You're probably thinking 20 cookies? 10? Try 3 1/2. The next biggest military spender we know that could oppose America is Russia, and they are an ally, and only spend 7 cookies. The axis of evil? The terrorists we're so worried about? All of them COMBINED spend less than 1 cookie. Mmm... billions of dollars...

Of course, you could also watch America: Freedom to Fascism by Aaron Russo and learn why you shouldn't be paying any taxes at all, but that's a whole different tangent. And that one'll REALLY piss you off. Best hour and a half I've ever spent.

Are Senators in Vermont not aware that the Patriot Act is HUGELY instrumental in imposing the North American Union that is meant to be the downfall of our sovereignty? Okay, first of all, your asking "What is the North American Union?" Well, its tricky to a not-so-political so and so like me. Basically the North American Union's goal is to make it so our borders are "safely open" for coming and going. A huge trucking route will be made straight through the middle of the U.S. and Mexican truckers will be allowed to come and go as they please. Basically, their goal is to dissolve our borders. What could possibly result from this? Well, I'll give you the lowdown on how millions of U.S. citizens are beginning to see it, including all of us on Planet Joon. The inevitable human tsunami of immigrants will clog our every state and federal system from schools to welfare to hospitals. The middle class will essentially evaporate, and which side of that are YOU going to end up on? It will be chaos, and President Bush will be required to call Martial Law, which is basically a Police State. It might take more than a rush of immigrants. Perhaps another civil tragedy, like, say.... 9/11? I'm sorry, did I just sound like I was trying to say our government perpetrated 9/11 in order to be able to create the Patriot Act in our furor of fear? And/or that they might very well do it again to their very own citizens in order to create a World Government ruled by commerce which they themselves would benefit from since they are from some of the wealthiest families in the country? Well, now that its out there, who am I to edit it out?

Now we here at Planet Joon (and by we, I mean me, Joon) don't like to just mope and groan. We don't just "woe is me" on about the world like some frantic, hopeless emo. No, here, we take action! And I don't just mean by educating the inhabitants of Planet Joon, nor do I simply mean stirring a bit of spice into an already bubbling cauldron of pissed-off-edness. I mean that I think if you care, and aren't some chicken shit, you can do something productive to pull us out of this nosedive that doesn't involve being pepper sprayed or breaking the front window out of a Starbucks (no matter how much fun either of those things may be).

First off, "Ask not what your country can do for Ben Cohen; ask what Ben Cohen can do for your country." and then listen. In other words, join True Majority (the link is above). It is SO EASY. Seriously, they send you like a link every couple of weeks, and it will take you to a letter they've already made out to your Senator or Governor or whoever, all you do is put your name on it, and they send it off. Congrats. It took less than a minute to contact your Congressman about whatever may be the hot topic of the moment. They keep track of when shit is happening, so you send all the right stuff at the right time. For instance, our Congress is about to (or has just) started talking about the federal budget. True Majority sent me an email, and when I clicked on it, it took me to a game where I took Oreos like in the video and decided how I thought the budget should look. They then converted that into numbers, I signed my names and they sent the percentages off to my state's Congressperson. Sweet!

Next, join the protest against the North American Union. This is being formed mostly by the teamsters union, because Mexican truckers being allowed on our roads will mean less work for OUR truckers, and will destroy the unions that they have built. On April 23, 24, and 25th, they (and many other people) will be protesting by driving very very slowly down major highways from morning to 5 p.m. For more info, go here. I'll be driving.

Most of all, just put down the bong, or the porno, or the game controller, or whatever's keeping your lazy ass from doing something about it and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. This isn't a theory about what's coming a century from now. This is happening right in front of your face! I'm not saying its your job as an American. I'm not saying its an obligation to your children or to your grandchildren. I'm saying that if you don't, your life is going to change, and you ain't gonna like it.

As for the Vermont senate? Seriously. Its about damn time.