The other end of the spectrum

by d at 10:51 AM on December 16, 2001

When I was younger I could form a circle with my hands, my thumb tips and index fingertips touching... around my waist. My mother and sister would joke that I was too skinny, my step-mother constantly encouraged me to eat more. Lots more. I didn't see the problem. I always reasoned with myself that it was because I ate three regular meals, cereal in the mornings, a sandwich at lunchtime and a well balanced dinner in the evenings. My occasional snack binges included ginger biscuits and milk while watching NYPD Blue and the occasional packet of chips.

To say I was anorexic would be unfair to the people truly suffering from anorexia, I simply wasn't hungry, I didn't feel the compulsion to eat and I had, what I considered to be, more important issues to deal with, like excelling in school. Turns out this is archtypical behavior of anorexics, I just wasn't a very good one. The need for control, when you feel that you don't control anything. The pursuit of excellence to the detriment of your own physical and occasionally mental health. The logic behind it goes something like "I'm forced to be the best at school, I have to be the best at everything, my teachers control what I do, my parents control what I do, but by God I can control what I eat."

Eventually a sense of loathing sets in where you can't stand to put food into your mouth, you feel repulsed by the taste and texture of anything, you want it out of your mouth as fast as possible, be it by swallowing or regurgitating. Again, thankfully I never reached that stage. So, what is my point here? Control, the ultimate goal is to maintain control over the single most important aspect of your own survival.

Dubya Bush is a metaphorical anorexic. At the expense of a growing restriction of civil liberties and tolerances the United States government is slowly starving America. Isolation from the outside world, the desire to show short bouts of control over things like the environment with the Kyoto Treaty renegation and world peace with the ABM treaty at the expense of global respect, but hey, what do we care, huh? We're making the world a safer place.

No, you're making America a scarier place. When some fool can demand that a pledge of allegiance from every schoolkid in the States should be mandatory, when ID cards and questions of "how much of a citizen are you genuinely?" are bandied about, when your own President starts classifying documents under Executive Priviledge, well my friends, it was nice knowing you, we'll try and sneak some chocolate in over the Canadian border for the lucky few.

When your own Emperor... sorry, President, decides that the country can only be protected by withdrawing in upon itself, and that the very governing body supposedly in place to keep him under control can't be allowed to see certain evidence deemed too sensitive to national security to be open for debate, you've got to ask yourself, how long before the Stormtrooper armor gets handed out to the "true patriots".

Got a passport? No, probably not, statistic are against you there. Assuming that every passport issued between 1981 and 2001 lasted for ten years (instead of five for kids) there were 87,357,179 passports issued to US citizens, with the trend heading towards 6.5 million a year so we'll add a further 13 million, makes 100,357,179 passports in circulation, minus however many of those expired beforehand because they were kids, also minus the 3.5 million that expired this year. As of July 2001, the US population was 278,058,881, not including illegal immigrants. Based on estimations that would be less than 30% of American's own passports, with some sources saying that of that 30% only 5% actually ever use them to travel outside of the country. All that freedom and you just don't use it. So guess what's likely to be the first freedom they take away from you? That's right, the ones you don't even make use of.

Again, what's my point? Your anorexic President is starving the country slowly with executive decisions you have no influence over because your appointed State officials aren't allowed to determine if your elected President is saying and doing the right things. He has control, he just doesn't realise what he's doing with it.

I demand a recount and you can send the Secret Service whenever you feel like it, I'm right here.