Chong's Bongs, and More

Happy Birthday, Flora! (My sister, that is, Bush, still living back in the old country. Old Europe, as your Rumsfeld memorably once said.) But I sometimes wonder, Bush, if I'm still living in the same country that I came to forty years ago. You like to think of us, I know, as the beacon of freedom and democracy for the rest of the world. But sometimes, honestly, I just have to wonder…

I was listening to KPCC on the freeway yesterday, for example, and if it wasn't one thing, it was another. The one thing was Terri Gross's interview with Tommy Chong, the comedian recently released after serving nine months in jail for his association with his son's business, selling drug paraphenalia on the Internet. Bongs, in a word. With Tommy's famous stoner mug engraved on the glass. He was netted in "Operation Pipe Dreams," if you can believe it, a sweep of all those evil-doers aiding and abetting those marijuana users out there--half the nation, at a guess. Did your Ashcroft's Justice Department not have more important priorities than the arrest and proseuction of bong distributors? I mean, seriously...

Besides, the prosecution of the suppliers of this apparatus reminds me of the (somewhat corny) old story of Paddy, the Irishman, who was caught with all the apparatus for making moonshine liquor in his cellar. No liquor, he'd gotten rid of the hard evidence in the usual manner: he just had the apparatus. Still, he was hauled before the local judge and duly found guilty of the crime of making illegal liquor. Before sentencing the dastard, the judge asked, "Well, Paddy, now, do you have anything to say in your defence?" (Irish spelling, Bush). "Well, yes, Your Honour," Paddy says, "while we're at it, I'd like Your Honour to take into account an additional charge of rape." "Rape?" says the judge, surprised: "You haven't committed rape, have you?" "Well, no Your Honour," Paddy says. "But I have the apparatus."

Well, maybe not so terribly funny, Bush. But nine months? For having his name associated with this terrible crime. The prosecutor, one Mary Beth Buchanan, was interviewed by Terry Gross, and never cracked a radio smile. Her associate, in her summary, had accused Chong of becoming wealthy by "glamorizing the illegal use and distribution of marijuana, and trivializing law enforcement efforts to combat drug use." Referring, of course, to the Cheech and Chong movie series of the 1970s. Thirty years ago, Bush! Satire! No? A legitimate art form! Freedom of speech, freedom of expression! Are they forgotten, in America today? I mean, seriously. Shades of Lenny Bruce. Though, of course, in the current climate, poor Lenny would likely fare even worse than he did back then.

Okay, on to the other apparent seemingly absurd overreach of judicial power: Kitty Felde's interviews with principals involved in the arrest and incarceration of Iman Abdel Jabar Hamdan, husband and father, a twenty-seven year resident of the United States, who had the misfortune to have acted as a fundraiser for an organization later designated by the Justice Department as having provided funds to terrorist organizations. (Thank you, Kitty, for drawing greater attention to this case--particularly mine!) It appears from the narrative that those primarily responsible for the day-to-day operations of the organization have already been let off the hook, for lack of evidence. But Hamdan, reportedly a minor figure, employee, consultant to the organization, was arrested six months ago at his home at dead of night before his terrified wife and children, and carted off to jail without explanation, where he has remained ever since--as I understand it, charged even now only with a minor, twenty-year old visa violation. This is the stuff, I hate to say it, of a fascist state. Not America, surely?

So tell me, is this the beacon of freedom and democracy we wish to present to the rest of the world, Bush? Or are stories such as this a source for greater outrage and resentment in the Arab world? Are we to be known as the country that persecutes and imprisons its citizens for absurdly minor and unproven offenses? As I say, I sometimes have to wonder if this is the same country I came to, forty years ago…