SAY UNCLE

I'm sure that voice on the tape isn't Bin Laden. I think it's President
Bush. I say this not because I'm trying to be funny-I know how to do that,
thank you very much-but because I was struck once again by the hammer of
truth, and as usual it hurt, which isn't funny either.

And there's certainly nothing very funny about murderers and madmen,
especially when you can't tell them apart. That's extremely unfunny. Will
they kill you with a jetliner before they take away your civil liberties,
or is it the other way around? Not exactly a laugh riot.

It also wasn't funny how that Binladenesque voice talked about a righteous
cause and the need to righteously slay all enemies. Funny, that's what
Georgey Boy keeps saying.

Now we've got that Homeland Security thing passed by our wise Congressional
lapdogs intent on doing the Right thing and getting reelected. The
Department of Homeland Security is finally going to take the Defense
Department and twist it hither and yon in such directions not seen since we
said "Howdy!" to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Among other things, it's going to make it easier for the police to wiretap
my house right before they head over to your place.

I wonder how scoring some pot is going to figure into national security.
Probably the same way those War on Drugs TV spots inform ignorant teens
about the circuitous route that joint they just scored traveled on its way
to their slumber party-the SLO Town dealer got it from the L.A. guy who got
it from someone's brother's uncle in Ensenada, etc., etc. all the way back
to some little muchacho harvesting the marijuana fields of Mexico who got
whacked by a drug kingpin's brother's uncle for not picking fast enough.

The rationale will go something like that. You're talking to your brother's
uncle and the DEA remembers something about that from a TV ad, and then you
say something about that movie, "The Ring," that terrified you (Terror?
Terrorist ring?), which gives them justifiable cause to splinter your door
DEA-style in the name of National Security.

You think this is far-fetched? Me neither. But lots of people-lots of very
nice people-have an objection to my not-so-far-fetched scenario as logical
as it is wrong.

But we've got to do something about terrorism, they say. We've got to give
up a few freedoms, you know, it's a small price to pay. I say, yeah, I get
that. There's not much use for freedom if you're dead.

But wait. Stop and think.

The police are okay people. I've got nothing against them-at least not
much. They like doing their job, and they like catching bad guys, so like
showing us how much they like it by doing it well. This makes everyone feel
safe and all-around super-duper.

This is a good thing. Trouble is, not everyone the police think are bad
guys really are bad guys. Sometimes they're just dumb. There are plenty of
unlucky kids fading away in prison right now for having some LSD on a sugar
cube rather than a piece of paper. Really, that's true. The cops weigh the
thing the acid is on to determine drug weight, not the acid itself. That's
the sort of logic the War on Drugs conjures.

But we've got to do something about drugs. We've got to give up a few
freedoms, you know, it's a small price to pay. So teenage ghetto
entrepreneurs and stupid college kids sit in prison until the sun goes
supernova. Yes, we've got to do something. It's one small price for The
Man, a giant leap for the bad kind.

But if you're not the bad kind, what do you have to worry about? I've heard
this bilge-and-blather for years.

Your toothache is throbbing like a suppressed volcano, but you're out of
Vicodin. So you borrow some of your friend's brother's uncle, and get
stopped for making an illegal left turn and end up in jail waiting for the
sun to explode. But you can't really complain. After all, you did have
drugs, and we've got to give up a few freedoms, you know. Like yours.

We all want to feel safe. The cops have a quota to meet so we can feel
all-around super-duper. Be quiet and sip your gruel.

The public isn't all that sympathetic when it comes to criminal druggies.
They end up at the bottom of the public priority list, right between
cockroach larvae and terrorists. Yeah, yeah, everyone in prison says
they're innocent, quibble, quibble, just shut up, "The Sopranos" is on.

The Defense Department should know that you never fight a war on two
fronts. Napoleon learned that as he trudged through the snow back to France
while Russian soldiers used his glorious army for target practice. With a
War on Drugs and a War on Terrorism, there isn't much ammunition left for a
War on Poverty or any other war that's really worth fighting.

Battles are ugly and confusing, with everything flying everywhere in the
middle of an uncertain outcome, a real mess. And sometimes we can't tell
that the bad guys we're shooting at are on our side. We only find that out
while mopping up.

Yeah, I know how to be funny, thank you very much. But not this week.
Because this isn't very funny.