Maybe it Means Something

Lincoln ordered several northern newspapers that criticized him be shut down, and he had city officials of Baltimore arrested. He ordered the arrest of Chief Justice Roger Taney after he ruled that Lincoln had violated the Constitution after he had illegally suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus. Hundreds of individuals were arrested on unclear charges and tried in a military court, while civilian courts were still operating. The Supreme Court later ruled that was unconstitutional. It was a kangaroo court system set up to indefinitely jail those that spoke against him.

i was 11 when 9/11 happened and i came of age watching the military rip iraq to pieces while bush expanded the already robust state surveillance apparatus. drone strikes and extraordinary renditions. guantanamo bay and abu ghraib. hundreds of thousands of murdered civilians. this was the news that set the backdrop of my teen years. cries of bush being a fascist were regular. what was clear was that he was evil for all these things.

i was 18 when the 2008 elections rolled around - my first time voting in a presidential election. obama had campaigned on “hope and change” and i was electrified. except nothing changed. in fact, it got a lot worse. increased drone strikes, a greater presence in afghanistan, guantanamo bay is still open, honduras was nearly destroyed, 2 million people were deported or put in concentration camps, the list goes on.