V for Vendetta

Remember remember the Fifth of November the gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. "November 5, 1605, a solitary figure is arrested in the cellars of Parliament House. Although he first gives his name as John Johnson, a startling series of events begins to unfold under torture. Guy Fawkes, as he is really called, is one of thirteen who have conspired to blow up the parliament, the King, and his Lords, thereby throwing the whole country into turmoil, out of which these traitors hoped to raise a new monarch sympathetic to their cause, and return England to its Catholic past." Guy Fawkes (or Guido, as his homies apparently called him) and these other 12 are remembered as freedom fighters, and were armed with a butt-load of gunpowder and a spiffy little plot. There were Catholics in that Parliament House, too, their own guys, and it was still worth blowing them all up to overthrow the Protestant Government. I hear some people call that kind of thing terrorism... 'V' was so close to where my mind has been lately, to see this story, to have someone explain so beautifully such a terrifying thing. I can't get over the enormity of trying to overthrow a government, of taking my rights in my hand and declaring I am entitled to them. 'An idea is bulletproof,' he says. The ideas of personal freedoms and liberties, those things enabling us to put tacky bumper stickers about what an idiot the President is all over our Suburbans, we cannot take for granted. How many North Koreans will have to die from starvation and destitution before someone will take that nutbag Kim Jong-il out? What if I was living in some bull shit country where I couldn't go to church (or had to) or had all of my Internet content censored? Could I deal with life without Dooce? And how could I think of all of this without considering all the little ways we allow ourselves to be separated from even our neighbors: television, computers... Lord, I don't even want to talk to the lady next door if my hair doesn't look okay, and all that separation breaks us down, I think. If we're not close, we're not unified, and it just seems like we're all sticking our noses into our little lives and not paying attention to the trends in the world around us, like stories about the terrorist 'freedom fighters' we keep hearing in the news... Just a minute ago on the news they were discussing a 9:00 curfew put in place in Western India because of a series of explosions in a Muslim majority town. I simply can't imagine being attacked because of my religion, or attacking because of it. I also can't imagine having a curfew keeping me off the streets... How long can a country remain such a peaceful place to live as the US is? Was 9/11 a taste of things to come? Is this forever? Am I really naive for even wondering?