At any given moment, your door can be smashed down to bits and secret police armed to the teeth can confiscate your computer, your phone records, bank statements, a list of what books youâ??ve checked out from the public library and all personal possessions.

Former front man for the early “80s punk rock group Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra was on campus last Monday delivering a lecture that left most of the full house with a rather grim depiction of where our country is heading.

Over the course of three hours, Biafra depicted an America entrenched in bleak absurdity.

Our Roman Empire of a nation has been reduced to a Third World, third-class slut fueled by a level of greed unheard of in any past civilization. The American people are suckers.

The young adults of our country are dying in the name of capital revenue generated by oil. Soldiers are returning home grossly disfigured and traumatized by war stress syndromes in the interest of corporate financial profit. It is deemed socially acceptable to drive environmentally disastrous vehicles with unacceptable gas consumption standards because, in all honesty, who really cares about the ozone layer anyway?

What makes Biafra such an effective orator is his ability to gouge below the surface of our rosy, sunny-skied preconceived notion of an America that doesn“t really exist anymore. In doing so, he depicts the atrocities that our government commits upon other countries, the environment and its own people.

These slanderous acts of defamation should be perceived as our government“s open declaration of war upon its own citizens. We of the Patriot Act generation should be frightened and greatly alarmed. At any moment our wires could be tapped. Best not to say anything of terrorism or bombs while conversing on your cell phone.

Our public files can be accessed without our knowledge and without being told why. Further, we cannot do a damn thing about it. Suddenly Kafka“s “The Trial” loses its sense of absurdity and takes on incredibly relevant meaning.

At any given moment, your door can be smashed down to bits and secret police armed to the teeth can confiscate your computer, your phone records, bank statements, a list of what books you“ve checked out from the public library and all personal possessions.

Those who speak out in defiance are deemed potential terrorist threats and live in constant fear of being relocated to one of our government“s internment camps (Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, etc.), dropping off the face of the earth for thinking the wrong thing or expressing oneself in a way that fails to conform with our founding principles of homogeneity and patriotic flag-waving crap.

Essentially, our government has instilled a level of fear into the people it is committed to protect and represent.

Are the public ratings down in the war in Iraq? Raise the terror alert to the color of humility. Are people human beings in same sex relationships demanding the same level of equality that everyone else is entitled to in this country? Raise that alert up to the color of blood.

Is there a large demonstration peacefully protesting the Republican National Convention? Build an enclosed designated demonstration area with barbed wire and machine gun-totting police to keep watch. Then raise the terror alert to the color of fear.

Do not be afraid to pick up the phone and inform the local police of your neighbor“s suspicious or eccentric behavior. Only then can we safely go about our mundane lives filled with Fox 6 sports, and oh-so-culturally important trivialities of washed-up Hollywood stars and their perpetual struggle with drug addiction.

Biafra“s America is also our America. Whether you take his words as pure cynicism or as an honest outlook on our society, his words are deserving of closer inspection on many of the things in life we take for granted.

I would like to openly thank the Students for a Democratic Society for all the work they contributed to Jello Biafra“s lecture last Monday night. Your organization rocks.

> Comments