National Insecurity
If your suspension-of-disbelief bridge has started to sag it’s time to tighten the cables again. From U.S. Newswire on December 20th:
“Pentagon Labels Gay Kiss-In A ‘Credible Threat’”
According to recent press reports, Pentagon officials have been spying on what they call “suspicious” meetings by civilian groups, including student groups opposed to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel. The story, first reported by Lisa Myers and NBC News last week, noted that Pentagon investigators had records pertaining to April protests at the State University of New York at Albany and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school’s LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw, which was classified as “possibly violent” by the Pentagon. A UC-Santa Cruz “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” protest, which included a gay kiss-in, was labeled as a “credible threat” of terrorism.
Ah… what? The Pentagon is worried that LGBT advocacy groups are violent and pose a “credible threat” to national security? What year is this? Here’s more from Gay City News, December 22-28:
The groups identified as being under FBI or military scrutiny include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals PETA, Greenpeace, the Catholic Workers—and at least four student groups protesting the U.S. military’s anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and the presence of Pentagon recruiters on their university campuses.
The gay and anti-war university groups named so far as targets of government surveillance are OUTLaw, the gay legal group at the New York University Law School in Manhattan, and organizations from the State University of New York at Albany, William Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.
So a U.S. government department with ultimate authority over war is expending its resources to protect the nation from groups organised to protect dogs and cats, the environment, the poor and the right of LGBT people to fight openly for the United States?
It sounds illogical yet familiar. I wonder…
Wait, I know where I’ve heard about this before: wasn’t it in that book about the 80s where those agencies with the funny names used that type of reasoning that helped people to deal with contradictions by ignoring them? Yeah that sounds right. Now what did it say exactly?
They were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
Right, that was it! Thank f@#% that was only a novel. That was some scary $#!t.