The Bush government has an Orwellian tendancy to name its bills to be the opposite of what they really are, like the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, the Clean Skies Initiative and now the Clean Water Act. All these acts promise one thing and deliver another, but like household products, if the label looks good people buy it. Over breakfast today I mentioned the idea that "they" should just bite the bullet and rename their government departments in the same spirit.
So, the Department of Homeland Security becomes the Department of Homeland Insecurity ensuring that we all feel insecure 24/7. The Department of Defence becomes the Department of Agression, no explanation required there. A few agencies will keep their name but trade roles - the FDA will concentrate on keeping legal drugs from overseas out of the country to protect our drug company monopolies, the DEA will stay the DEA but with the role of ensuring everyone takes their drugs (see THX1138).
But for a few name changes I think we're pretty much there already. When did the defence department actually do anything to defend us? For the two hostile attacks on American soil in the last hundred years (9/11 and Pearl Harbour) they were strangely caught napping. Doesn't today's attack in Saudi Arabia just go to show that even the most heavily defended areas on this planet are still vulnerable and that back in the US of A Homeland Security is surely a myth worthy of celebrating with its own national holiday? We can all have another day of turkey and heavily armed charity workers can loiter outside supermarkets ringing a bell and handing out free nail clippers and knitting needles...
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