What is going on with the United States of America and its legislative foundry? I realize that partisans like news that validates their own tastes and worries and reporting is prone to exaggeration, but the States have lately taken on these strange airs with all the busy, bossy tyranny of a domineering and wicked step-sister. Maybe it is the throes and rattle of a collapsing empire and dynasty, desperate and clawing--but undeniably and unequivocally, America seems to be assaulting those freedoms and achievements that made it relevant (if not great) with a perverted prejudice and uncertain prospects. It all sounds unreal. At the behest of the entertainment industry, it was revealed that America was intent on
denuding the internet, making it a very difficult to publish original work or sample the creations of others without establishing an onerous chain-of-custody and provenance except for those artists whom are already discovered and can afford the up-keep of membership and registry. Next, in quick succession, the US is considering broadening the definition of
battlefield to cover the whole folksy
Homeland, this front just added to the Global War on Terrorism a few months after it was deemed acceptable that America's Cyber-Command could launch an offensive fight and respond not in kind to virtual threats but answer them with real-world guns and bullets. These creeping powers of the military and the all-encompassing playing field would allow for detention of anyone anywhere without trial or due process for an unlimited period of time, not just American citizens in America.
The last and latest insult is the natural consequence of unrelenting attacks on the
arts and sciences in the States but is now assuming its final form with the failure of the Congressional Super-Committee to trim the government budget. I suspect that no one had much faith that the Super-Committee would succeed, so some analysts saying that the failure was a good fiscal outcome as automatic reductions have been put into motion is not a very genuine endorsement. Perhaps brute enforcement will force some choices and some discipline but programs targeted on contingency of this breakdown are, besides social programs, funding for art programs and research and development. Squandered inspiration and neglected imagination are intolerable wastes, and these proposals, in triplicate, even if overstated, are dangerous and would generate little in return, regardless who champions them. What gain, anticipated and delivered, could even begin to replace what's been lost? The torment in the end, like an overbearing and favoured step-sister however, may be just as listless and a paper-tiger as the tormentor.
The last and latest insult is the natural consequence of unrelenting attacks on the arts and sciences in the States but is now assuming its final form with the failure of the Congressional Super-Committee to trim the government budget. I suspect that no one had much faith that the Super-Committee would succeed, so some analysts saying that the failure was a good fiscal outcome as automatic reductions have been put into motion is not a very genuine endorsement. Perhaps brute enforcement will force some choices and some discipline but programs targeted on contingency of this breakdown are, besides social programs, funding for art programs and research and development. Squandered inspiration and neglected imagination are intolerable wastes, and these proposals, in triplicate, even if overstated, are dangerous and would generate little in return, regardless who champions them. What gain, anticipated and delivered, could even begin to replace what's been lost? The torment in the end, like an overbearing and favoured step-sister however, may be just as listless and a paper-tiger as the tormentor.
