Fatherland

"If this is Homeland Security, I think we ought to be a little afraid," said the Englewood Elementary School Principal Gail Brinson. Who can disagree?

Leander Pickett, a teacher's assistant at Englewood Elementary, was directing bus traffic Tuesday afternoon, making sure everything worked smoothly and the busses had a safe place to pick up the kids. Naturally, two men in black in a sedan parked in an elementary school bus stop crowded with kids seemed enough out of place and in the way to motivate Mr. Pickett to politely ask them to move the car. A more suspicious man than Pickett might have called the cops, but little did he know, they weren’t pederasts looking to kidnap children, they were agents of George W. Bush’s Gestapo – Homeland Security.

When I first heard that name, it seemed so oddly reminiscent of something a totalitarian régime would invent – Fatherland security, perhaps, black boots and all. I was right. Ordinary public servants might have replied – “excuse us, but we’re just looking at a map and will be gone in a moment – don’t worry, we’re law officers – here is my badge.”

Of course Pickett wasn’t quite so lucky; according to WJXT channel 4 News in Jacksonville, even after the principal intervened and asked them to move, the defenders of liberty refused to budge. He was roughed up, slammed against a car, handcuffed and humiliated by Emperor Bush’s private army – America’s Gestapo. The incident occurred in front of many credible witnesses, including the school principal, but of course the DHS immediately responded with the accusation that Picket was “annoying” the officers. I’m sure that before long the web will bristle with bloggers insisting that Pickett trained in Afghanistan because that’s how the Fascist Right works, but Pickett and his school teacher witnesses are sticking with their story and I wish them luck. I wish us all luck, because we’re going to need it. Today it’s Leander Pickett, tomorrow it might be you.