Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Friday, Apr. 30, 2004 - 1:08 a.m.

So, like, I'm running AOHell IM tonight, because I haven't spoken to a friend of mine in ages, and it's too late to call and wake everyone else up. I know she's surfing, so I open up aim in case she wants to talk. I tell you this because there was an ad running in the buddy list window. An ad for ready.gov. Which is - are you ready? Homeland Security's little page telling you how to prep yourself for terrorist attack.

How fucking 1984 is that?

I mean, seriously. It's just creepy. It really is. It weirds me out. Now even surfing has to be a freaking fear-based activity, and I'm not talking about protecting yourself from the scum known as hackers. I can not believe that in something as mundane as running AIM, I still have to deal with the damn government pounding me over the head with the "terrorist threat level" and how I should live in constant fear of attack from an unseen enemy I can not actually defend myself against. Do they imagine this will win them the election? Do they think it will frighten me into signing over ever more of my rights, until I have none, no freedoms, no thoughts other than those sanctioned by The State? I mean, they must. And I guess those people who use AOHell for their internet access are Bush & Co's core audience. Point-and-click gui's who never really venture out on the real web, believing there's really nothing out there beyond aol-keyword this or that, and all the news fit to digest is the pablum fed to them by Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch. Comes as no real shock, I suppose, that the government has chosen Time Warner as its vessel. They are, after all, a kinder, gentler, somewhat more legitimate version of Fox and Truth As the Government Wants You to See It.

::sigh::

Bygones.

I'd just like, for one fucking day, to live my life in a world undominated by fear and threat and the nourishment of us and them and hatred. The world I used to live in. Before September 11. Before Bush.

Peace out,
Katie

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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

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In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
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