It would appear that my entire adult life has been beset by the consequences
of a simple and basic political view I happen to hold true, this being
the notion that I am sovereign over my own body. As a result of my
stubborn dedication to this belief I have enjoyed the government's
perennial harassment, social and economic discrimination, needless
grief and turmoil in my family not to mention my own mental and physical
torture
Even as I write these words I am a fugitive from the State due to
this belief. It will forever amaze me that what should in all sensibility
be a matter of personal hygiene has been teased into the monster of
social terror and the tender sore of a political issue it has become.
It seems so simple. Like one of those truths that "we hold to
be self-evident."-- Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and,
by the
way, I own my body
It is no accident that the foremost of all legal instruments is called
the Writ of Habeas Corpus or translated: a document about having possession
of the body. This concept is at the very heart of what it means to
be free. Who determines where a body is housed and under what conditions
is the most basic political issue possible. The angriest sores upon
the body politic are found wherever one person(or the government)
presumes control over another regarding various matters concerning
the body. When we witness hot blood over abortion rights, drug laws,
urine or DNA testing, cloning or genetic engineering, health care
and similar issues we are seeing manifestations of this same underlying
topic--body sovereignty.
It's damn near un-American to follow all the rules. America has always
been about 'breakin' the rules' "When in the course of human
events it becomes necessary..." What we reach for is a judicious
breaking of the rules. And as we become more and more rule obsessed
while the society stacks itself in an ever more compact architecture,
this spirit of reserved rebellion is almost mandatory for survival.
This is why in older and structure-laden cultures graft becomes institutionalized.
Just before the fall of the Soviet Union one of the networks did a
very interesting comparative piece on the Moscow police force and
the San Jose, Calif. police force. The Russians were understaffed,
underequipped and came off looking like Mayberry RFD. San Jose on
the other hand looked like Strike Force Vader from outer space, riot
clad, shotgun wielding, computer linked, video protected, any cop's
wet dream of the future. It was left to the audience to draw their
own conclusions as to which country was better equipped to enforce
a police state.
I'm telling you that in the name of the Drug War the complete infrastructure
of totalitarianism has been installed. There are prison beds just
waiting for your politics to get unpopular. Or your sexuality; or
your genes. And unless we demand our bodies back our children will
pay the price of oppression. Just because our deathhouses have a bed
and a needle instead of a shower and a crematorium doesn't make it
one whit less genocidal and immoral. How we determine the victims
is only a matter of fashion. And in today's world fashion can turn
on an internet dime. How does that quotation from some German in the
'30s go?--"When they took away the whores I didn't say anything
because I wasn't a whore. And when they took the junkies away I didn't
say anything because I wasn't a junky...." I paraphrase.
We haven't even begun to see the consequences of the DrugWar culture.
Like seeding little PLO's all over the place, it's ultimately reap
what you sow for all the commercial rapine and the irrelevancies we
persist in teaching in school.
It's a cruel irony that the average guy needing an organ transplant is much more likely today to be saved by the technique should he be able to avail himself of it, but less likely to be able to obtain the proportionally dwindling donor organs. This is where I predict that the Body Sovereignty issue will reach the hot-box. I mean in the area of organ and tissue transplants in humans, as well as the associated genetic engineering, cloning etc. Given the current free-enterprise capitaphilic attitude, which fosters a certain rapine in these areas, I don't like the way things are going. I think things are likely to get ugly in terms of body parts for money. The Tissue Issue. Truly Goulish.
Any American who isn't insulted to his marrow about what has happened
to our rights at the hands of the drug laws has not a dick between
his legs. And some bourgeois sap mouths this banality as the Rottweiller
nuzzles a snout into his crotch,"It's OK. I have nothing to hide."
That's not the point, stupid. But it does demonstrate how even well
meaning citizens get twisted in this culture of wrong thinking. The
point is that when some insipid little customs agent can stick his
latex finger up my ass then he can stick it up everybody's ass. And
you shouldn't have to be Tina Turner to pitch a bitch about it.