Wholphin

Do you know what a “terrorism enhancement� is? It’s when a guy at the justice department decides that a crime you have been charged with was meant to influence or coerce the government into changing a particular policy and thus warrants an additional punitive sentence far in excess of murder or any other violent crime on the books.

Basically by adding a terrorism enhancement, the Justice Department is saying, as inexplicable as it sounds, that burning a hummer because you have a creepy fire fetish is simple arson, but burning a Hummer to protest our government’s inaction regarding global warming is a worse crime than either murder or child rape.

On May 15, 2007, government prosecutors successfully convinced a judge to add a “terrorism enhancement� to arson charges against several environmental activists in Portland, Oregon who had pled guilty to destroying research facilities and other buildings. The government insisted that they qualified for the additionally punitive label, which comes with a mandatory 30-year minimum sentence, because “at least one of the fires each of them set was intended to change or retaliate against government policy.� It was the beginning of what is now being called “The Green Scare.� The Green Scare is the same thing as the Red Scare only with environmental and animal activists as the primary targets.

The fact that our government has come to see the Aristotelian concept of praxis- public action with the intention of changing the world- as not the constitutional duty of every good American, but an evil to be squashed in a Guantanamo prison, is the gasping canary in our collective civil rights coalmine. So, while we still can, we offer:

The Likelihood That Someone At Some Point Will Accuse You Of Terrorism Based On Recent Events Quiz.

1. November 20, 2006
A US Airways pilot orders six Muslim imams off his Phoenix-bound flight after their praying, conversation and behavior alarms flight attendants and several passengers. Some witnesses report the men were making “anti-American statements involving the Iraq war.â€? “These guys were up to no good,” passenger Pat Snelson said.

What is the likelihood of this happening to you? Check the most appropriate answer below:

A) I never fly US Airways because they have had 9 fatal events since 1970 according to airsafe.com, have declared bankruptcy twice, their CEO was just arrested for drunk driving, and only 56% of their flights arrived on time according to a recent study.

B) I only pray when I’m hungover, but I do have a beard, a big trendy Kazinsky. I grew it after the New York Times published this paragraph:“Do beards that call to mind Charles Manson suggest dissatisfaction with “the system”? Are broody beards, like the dark and somber mood of the fall fashion collections, physical manifestations of a melancholia in the air? Are they a reflection of the stylistic impact on mainstream fashion of the subculture of gay men known as bears, who embrace natural body hair?â€?

C) I never pray because I stopped believing in God the moment Tony Bennett thanked Target during his acceptance speech with Stevie Wonder at this year’s Grammy’s, and despite the New York Time’s informative article pondering the subconscious motivations driving the grooming habits of “10 out of 15� Vice Magazine employees, I find beards itchy and a little gay in that order.

(Answers: A, 35% chance. B, 64% chance. C, 8% chance.)

2. April 2004
The FBI’s Latent Fingerprint Unit makes a 100% positive identification that a partial print that investigators pulled from a plastic bag found at the scene of the Madrid train bombings belongs to Brandon Mayfield, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Ignoring Spanish investigators who seriously question the match, U.S. officials conclude that since Mayfield had once represented a man in a Portland child-custody case who was later suspected of terrorism, he should be investigated and detained under the Patriot Act. Mayfield was imprisoned for weeks as a material witness before a judge finally threw out his case suggesting the FBI re-evaluate their understanding of the term “100% positive.�

A) I have fingers.

B) I have no fingers… but I am a defense lawyer who believes every American deserves legal representation.

C) I refuse to go to Spain until their government acknowledges that the Basques are one of the planet’s oldest living bloodlines- over 35% have type 0 Rh-Neg blood, the blood from which all other human bloodlines reportedly developed- and thus deserve all the autonomy they want.

(Answers: A, 50% chance. B, 50% chance. C, 20% chance.)

3. March 2, 2007
While hosting a May Day Rock concert, an Italian comedian, Andrea Rivera, jokes “The Pope says he doesn’t believe in evolution. I agree, in fact the Church has never evolved.” The following day L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, accuse him of “terrorism.” “It’s terrorism to launch attacks on the Church,” it said. “It’s terrorism to stoke blind and irrational rage against someone who always speaks in the name of love, love for life and love for man.”

A) I too sometimes make jokes about the pope. In fact I’ve got a joke for you; The Pope, Mr. “Love For Life and Man� gets on stage in Rio in May and starts explaining that his church wasn’t brutally colonizing the Indians during the bloody conquistador wars, it was purifying them. Purifying them. Nice. Then he told all of Brazil to stop having premarital sex. Brazil! Comedy or terrorism? You decide.

B) I just realized that Googling “Pope Palpatine� gets 3,710 image results.

C) Anyone who says “the Catholic church has never evolved� has never heard Sister Wendy say the words “pubic hair.�

(Answers: A, 100% chance. B, 666% chance. C, 40% chance.)

4. September 2006
A Wisconsin man who wrote “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on a plastic bag containing toiletries was detained for hours by airport security.

A) Kip is no idiot, He’s a genius. As the director of the TSA his “3 ounces or less� policy for all toiletries while still refusing to screen all baggage for explosives is a perfectly intelligent way to trick the terrorists into thinking we are a nation run by complete morons. Plus, I bet he’s confiscated enough hair product to last himself a lifetime. Clever bastard.

B) I am a young man of, I guess you could say, “dark complexion.�

C) I like graffiti.

(Answers: A, 50% chance. B, 70% chance. C, 75% chance.)

5. April 2006
A taxi driver reported Harraj Mann to British authorities for listening to a Clash record in his cab on the way to the airport. The driver was apparently “so frightened by some of the lyrics that he took them as a rallying call for a terrorist attack.�

A) A brother was able to get a taxi out of Lester Square? Right. Not bloody likely.

B) I once asked a friend to punch me as hard as he could in the face so I could replicate Joe Strummer’s captivating smile but since the economy’s tanking I can barely afford a bag of chips much less cab fare to the airport.

C) The Clash? They sound like The Strokes right?

(Answers: A, 90% chance. B, 40% chance. C, 2% chance of being accused of terrorism, 90% chance of being a Chav)