Musings

I’ve just finished reading a book that I think will be the HAVE SPACESUIT or JUMPER for these early years of the twenty-first century. It’s LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow, and it’s terrific. It’s due out from Tor Books in May 2008, and the only reason I got a chance for an early read is because Tor sent me an advanced proof. If you have teenage kids, especially a boy(s) buy them this book. If you don’t have kids buy this book for yourself, especially if you’re a person who loves this country and is devastated by the destruction wrought on our freedoms, our society, and our Constitution by the Bush administration.

Sadly, I’m too old to be hip, and while I use computers and have an IPod Touch that serves as my Palm pilot, and host a website, I’m the kind of person who when faced with a recalcitrant computer would try sacrificing a small animal to appease the god in the box. Cory’s book is filled with discussions about internet security and hacking, and what’s in all those little labor saving devices that mean we have no privacy at all, and it’s fascinating. I understood ninety percent of it, and that’s a testament to how well he writes and how clearly he explains these matters if someone like me can follow it. It took me back to being a kid and reading about Kip and slide rule and how his knowledge of technical matters helped him save Peewee and the Mother Thing, and how much I wanted a slide rule.

I also hope this book will inspire kids to grow up and pay attention to the politics of their country. I envy Cory because he has a story that offers real solutions to invasions of our privacy and the loss of personal liberty under the all encompassing cry of “keeping us safe!” A pause for a rhetorical question — when did Americans become such chicken shits?

On this blog and in my own work the best I can offer, as a former lawyer and Constitutionist, is give money to the ACLU, and take cases before the Federal bench. But that may be of no help because thirty years of Republican appointees have degraded the judiciary, and undermined the Justice Department. They now seem to be tools of the government and corporations, with the individual simply lost between these grinding boulders.

The key are the young people. We’ve got to energize them, bring them out in such numbers that dodgy voting machines can’t be used to steal elections. Close elections are the enemy — when an election is close no one will believe that its been stolen. If we’re voting in such massive numbers that it can’t be ignored, we can protect our democracy. Which is why I really hope the situation between Clinton and Obama is not resolved with party insiders. If youth and hope and promise are trumped by power and cynicism I think we will lose the young for another generation, and by then, I fear, it will be too late.

The Constitution cannot, must not, be a quaint piece of paper that we praise, but don’t defend.

Cory has taken a big step in it’s defense.