Trick or Treatment?

The pita bread display is not where I last saw it. In it's place there is a dancing robotic Polar bear flanked by twirling penguins that sing Christmas music. The trio is placed in the same aisle as the Halloween candy.
This cynical juxtaposition of holidays is unsettling- it's like Christmas has dressed up as Halloween and trick-or-treat is really just an excuse for Santa to send the Elves out to gather candies for his 'North Pole' sweatshop**.

Here's an idea for a trick-or-treat costume that's guaranteed to scare most grown people- dress your kid up as Santa, have them remind adults that Christmas is less than two months away and that their own kid wants a drum kit. Your neighbors will love you.

If Christmas goes trick-or treating- what will it get? Red and white candy canes or Reese's Cups in packages that are even more orange and more black than usual?

Of course, no one trick-or-treats anymore.
It's too dangerous. It's like hitch-hiking, or attending school- a great idea until someone gets killed.

What do you want for Christmas?

If I was a Republican, I'd want a distraction from certain current embarassments.
I'd want a new issue, a new set of talking points.
School security fits that bill to a 'T'.

Armed guards at the gate of every school? If it hasn't been brought up already, it surely will be.
Pushing for such legislation would be good political strategy for the GOP, it's a great chance to push aside the Iraqi unpleasantness (and whatever the scandal du jour is, Friday it was the NIE, today it's Foley ) and spuriously claim to be the "safe schools" party.The GOP would renew it's case for privatizing the school system, this time "for the safety of the children"- it's for security, they will say, playing the fear card yet again.

Democrats, of course, will balk at the idea of privatized, perpetually 'locked-down' schools , allowing the GOP to portray them as being weak on school security- attack ads would likely suggest that candidate 'x' will unleash a tidal wave of Freddie Kreugers on schoolkids.

Security checkpoints installed at every public school does make a horrific sort of Machiavellian sense-American public school, as it stands, serves, at least in large part*, as a conditioning tool to prepare children for the rigorous monotony of adulthood- a forward thinking totalitarian would be dancing a giddy jig at the idea of placing security gates in schools - get the young ones accustomed to being patted down by armed guards at an early age, it'll make them much more docile and cooperative as adults, suitable for conscription or incarceration as needed.

As I think about it, it seems pretty clear that the GOP really needs this school safety issue- they have absolutely no platform, no successes of any sort to mention , no credibilty left-nothing. Worse than nothing, they have endless scandals. They can't even bring up Monica anymore, not after Foley.
Remember, this is the same administration that gleefully used the nightmare of 9/11 to push their unconstitutional agenda and illegal war forward- it's very generous to think they won't use the recent schools tragedies to advance their cause.

Make no mistake- security industry lobbyists are already drooling at the thought of scoring a fat Government contract to "make the schools safe."
That's a lot of metal detectors, x-ray machines and videocams, not to mention the nebulous but always expensive consulting fees.

Prediction: this year the ghouls don't wait for Halloween.




*It's also Socialized baby-sitting.

** Actually located in Bangladesh, Guatemala and Honduras.