...because I can't imagine a moment in our history when we've needed it more. I mean Bush and company had some pretty fancy arguments for their use of it, but let's look at some hard realities.
After 9/11 the guys who ended up there haven't done any actual damage to our country (after all, none were convicted of involvement in 9/11 or much else). I assume there were some who wanted to do damage and I suppose under somebody's Constitution you can toss people in jail forever for that. And certainly some of the youngsters who ended up there might have grown up and become extremely dangerous, so point taken -- but now we're in a situation where profound damage actually has been done, maybe fatal damage -- to the Republic, its citizens, possibly to the very soul of the country.
(Now, I want to make clear that I am in no way advocating that we throw into Gitmo all those upstanding gentleman -- and the few token ladies -- who lied to, stole from, and manipulated Wall Street, the banking industry, the corporations, and the governmental oversight agencies that were supposed to protect us against what they did.)
I am completely against this.
These stalwart men and women were only doing what our revered universities and enviable high-powered culture have been advocating for years -- the survival, enrichment and blossoming of those who can achieve it, those who have stood with both feet on that centuries' old tapestry of "survival of the fittest" meets Calvinism, meets any reality show (all of them) with a tough, wily and not altogether honest (ha-ha) winner at the end.
I'd say it's pretty much in our DNA by now, wouldn't you? I mean, didn't most of us play cowboys and Indians when we were kids? What was that about, other than a celebration of the most successful land grab in the history of the planet. And while we're on the subject of Indians, I think it's worth pointing out that Wall Street was purchased (fairly, after all -- both parties agreed) for a handful of beads.
So please don't blame these well-educated, generally well-read and always hard charging folks for stealing, lying and spinning their way into McMansions, BMWs and big pensions funds (well, formerly big pension funds). It's the American way and it's generally worked like gang-busters.
And, lest we forget, no more than six months ago it was all the rage to be one of those hard charging guys or gals. Only now, for instance, these poor AIG guys have been subjected to the rage. But do any of us really have the right to throw the first stone? I mean, how do you think it feels to get gabs of hate mail, even death threats? What's next? A guillotine? And why? Because they're unable to turn off the spigot of their finely-honed business acumen? How many of the rest of us have done any better shifting those life gears in these trying times, in any times? Let's be honest.
Which is my point. Look at history. Have any of the movers and shakers from Rome to the British Empire been able to change their ways? And what has history taught us about what a populace does when it finally sorts out exactly how dreadfully it's been fleeced and manipulated?
Which is where Gitmo comes in, Mr. President.
Because there are people waiting in the wings who just can't wait to stir that populace into a raging mob. And when that happens, heads will roll -- literally -- which will so totally screw up the possibility of this country ever pulling itself back from the brink that it isn't funny.So I plead with you President Obama, sir, send them all down to Gitmo for their own good. They'll get great tans. I'd suggest giving them great food too, maybe build a Four Seasons Hotel or two, except that the growing millions of out-of-work and homeless might look a bit askance at that. They might start sharpening that blade for you. So probably the better part of valor would be to reuse the cages already in place.
Sadly there appear to be far more of these highly motivated ladies and gentlemen who have bilked our country than the scum we rounded up before and sent to Gitmo, so that while those bad guys were maybe two to a cage, it would probably be necessary to up the number of the new visitors to between ten and fifteen.
I am not in favor of this. At all.
I believe people should be treated humanely. I believe we must never forget this or we are doomed as a culture, as a nation, as a Republic. I just don't think we have the money at the moment but there are a lot of things we're probably not going to have the money for when the dust settles: education, health care, alternative energy, research for almost anything new, you name it, the money won't be there.
And I suspect it won't be there for a long time.
But when it does start to come back, when the nation does begin to rise back onto its formidable feet, then let me be the first to demand that you build them more cages, sir, that you give them more room and better food, let them walk around and enjoy Cuba with its calming white beaches and then...
After the national rage subsides, after (hopefully) no irrational uprising has been set loose on the land, then I say -- forgive, forget and be understanding. Let them go free, because, though I wouldn't dare speak for the rest of you out there -- at least in my case -- I'd have to admit that, if I could have figured out how to do what they did, I might well have done it too.
Lucky for me, I couldn't.