Alternative Reality

I woke up this morning and settled into a form of consciousness by having my morning tea & checking several major news sites. These are bleak days -- not just due to winter & cruel natural disaster -- but things were more or less "normal" until I hit the top page of the Washington Post website, which featured prominently a story about Albert Gonzales. The subheading read:

Attorney general nominee says protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to alleged terrorists.

Call me crazy, but here I was thinking that folks are supposed to be considered innocent until proved otherwise. If someone is alleged to have done something, it's just that: an allegation, as yet unproved in a court of law. I know that everyone is assuming that Gonzales will become Attorney General with little trouble, but how can this be? How can a man who holds such contempt for due process, a man who has shown himself so willing to bend the law in such perverted ways (torture anyone?), be even up for consideration, much less considered a done deal?

I'm becoming increasingly aware that I have no representation in the government. The elected officials who are supposed to represent me and my best interests -- the interests, as it were, of an ordinary, average American -- simply no longer exist.

Is this a nightmare I'll awaken from? Or was George Orwell only off by 20 years but right in every other aspect?

It's sickening. And there is no end in sight.