Sleepycatz

The Cult of Deimos

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed S.1927 - The Protect America Act. The act passed early Saturday morning by the Senate gives the president unfettered power to surveil any person, or persons, within the United States as long as he ‘believes’ that his is also surveilling someone outside the country as well. The act specifically exempts any such surveillance from judicial oversight. With no requirement of a warrant, and no one allowed to oversee the orders of surveillance, the president may now legally spy on any American citizen he likes. Marty Lederman has some excellent analysis of the act at Balkinization.

So how did we arrive at this point? A place where our government betrays its founding principle — the checks and balances of power — in the middle of the night, and where our own leaders are given the absolute power to intrude into our private affairs legally? The reason and cause is simple: fear. Democrats voted for the act because they feared that the president would accuse them of liking terrorists if they didn’t. Or worse, if a terrorist attack occurred the president would blame them for the attack. Republicans voted for the act because they were afraid of appearing unsupportive of the president, and, also, feared the accusation of liking terrorists.

Fear has become the overwhelming force which drives our country. We righteously worship it. Like supplicants at the alter of a jealous God will will do anything to appease it. We will offer up our rights and liberties; we will sacrifice our democratic heritage; we will allow our country to wage endless wars, and we will consume giant sport utility vehicles or any other goods to assuage the God of fear. Like any cult, fear has its high priests and deacons: like those who claim that western civilization is but a single terrorist attack away from collapse and ruin or those who suggest that debate or discussion is, in the very least, capitulation. For fear, as a master, cannot tolerate rational discussion and dissent, it survives and breeds through ignorance, hyperbole, and the all too human desire for power.

In 1955, poet Allen Ginsberg penned his masterpiece Howl. In his epic, Ginsberg hearkens post-war America to Moloch, the God of industrialized conformity and decay, which demands the sacrifice of our lives and those of our children. Today, post-9/11, our new lord has become Deimos — child of Aries and Aphrodite (War and Lust) and brother of Phobos (terror). But today we have no great poet or statesmen to calm the fever of our devotion to Deimos. They are all at the alters awaiting their turns to make sacrifice or offer prayers of protection. Deimos, like Moloch, can never be appeased. He will always want more; the next offering must always be greater then the previous. As with all cults, followers will eventually fade, and the priests will keep the pyres burning for years beyond necessity. But the God, and his priests, will never return the sacrifices made by the people in their moment of faith.

This entry was posted by steve on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.