The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,
And I was tarred and feathered,
For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:
“I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes
Standing on the steps of a marble temple.
Great multitudes passed in front of her,
Lifting their faces to her imploringly.
In her left hand she held a sword.
She was brandishing the sword,
Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,
Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.
In her right hand she held a scale;
Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed
By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.
A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:
‘She is no respecter of persons.’
Then a youth wearing a red cap
Leaped to her side and snatched away the bandage.
And lo, the lashes had been eaten away
From the oozy eye-lids;
The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;
The madness of a dying soul
Was written on her face –
But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage.”

Is it my imagination, or in that cartoon does Osama bin Forgotten look more than a bit … sheepish?

Obligatory humor aside, the American Public has forgotten the old adage about it being better that a hundred criminals go free than one innocent spend a day in jail. Between their blind fear and their belief that it could never happen to them, just to “them,” we get what we’ve got here today…yer basic MKI police state.