Three days ago I was finishing John Perkins’s, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, reviewed in the article below. I was so enthralled with it I did not wish to get home to the estate, where the sniveling peasants might beseech me for counsel and otherwise occupy my day with their trivial concerns. Once home I write. When I walk, wait for the bus, and commute on the bus, I read. I find this to be a good inexpensive use of my time. Reading though attracts the goons. It does not attract criminals. Criminals avoid anyone insane enough to walk around reading, especially when they are dressed in a lowly laborer’s work clothes.

At work three weeks ago a cop who had harassed me two years ago [See Officer ManFriendly on the Harm City page] was shopping where I work. He passed me about four times, eying me critically as he discussed shooting techniques with his partner. He kept doing a double-take as I worked and he shopped on our time and our dime. By the time he was checking out I was on my break reading Voodoo Fire in Haiti on the bench by the express lane. He was turning his head and making hard eye-contact; perhaps wondering if I was indeed the ‘criminal’ he had harassed for the crime of walking to work one rainy night in late 2011. I had given him a website card, and he did keep doing double-takes at the book—but who knows. It just made me feel uncomfortable that he was so focused on me, an old stock clerk on the job. A young coworker came up to me and snorted a laugh as the cops left, “And those pigs wonder why we hate them!”

So, weeks later, and only a few days ago, I wended my way through the ghetto, taking the long way home in order to finish reading that great book. I have become good at reading and notating as I walk. Also, the busses are much safer than they used to be thanks to all of the smart-phone addiction. Punks now watch porn and rap videos instead of picking fights with and shaking down old grunts. As I am a fulltime writer now the book and pen are now my ever-present arsenal, the shield and sword with which I must defend myself if attacked.

Apparently cops know this, that books; even Mister Perkin’s cheap flimsy best-seller, are deadly weapons. For, as I walked along a city lane reading and taking notes, I was shadowed by a city cop who crept along observing me, stopping when I stopped, from the comfort of her environmentally controlled Chariot of God-as-government. I eventually sat and looked at her. Then I began taking down her cruiser number and license plate and she pulled off.

I do not know if I will be so bold in the future after reading these two recent postings on RT.com:

1. 6/6/13 05:53, The New York State Senate has passed a law that makes it a felony to backtalk a cop. Thanks for giving them the excuse you ‘Occupy’ twerps.

2. 6/7/13 01:44, the US Department of Justice just completed a survey of one third of the nation’s juvenile detention facilities, in which they interviewed 8,500 inmates, 1,720 of which claimed to have been raped. One out of five of these teens claimed to have been raped more than ten times, predominantly by staff. The majority of the abuse claims were made in Ohio, Illinois, South Carolina and Georgia. Do I really want to get locked up with the predators that graduate from these facilities into the Big House just to assert my right to free speech in the face of petty tyranny?

These seem just like little cracks in the fabric of the mass delusion called Freedom. But coupled with the increased boldness of cops willing to nose into my crime-free middle-aged literary life, the massive monitoring of our electronic communications by the Federales, and snail mail letters from two readers who have told me that they cannot purchase my e-books and must view the site through other people’s terminals, to stay off of some federal ‘enemies list’, I am beginning to consider self-censorship. I’m thinking maybe that Hitler did knock someone up, that the kid was raised by Richard Nixon, and that he is presently molesting us in our collective national shower.

It is all getting weird enough that I am going to get back to reading and writing science-fiction and history as a way to get out of this place. In the mean time, I am going to practice up on my ‘Yes Sir’s’ in case my next book is slated to be confiscated by my Master’s Loyal Slaves.

James LaFond, still lord of his used book bag, 6/9/13.