posted October 03, 2007 02:09 PM              

J.K. Rowling continues some of the themes from Order of the Phoenix with The Ministry of Magic (the Wizarding equivalent of the government) being infiltrated by Death Eaters (Neo-cons) and The Daily Prophet (i.e. mainstream media) regurgitating propaganda. The community is fed fear: people disappear, paranoia trickles in, and "mudbloods", or people not of magical lineage, are treated as Muslims or illegal immigrants are in our country.

After recent news about some of the tidbits in the Cheney biography, I've decided Voldemort is closer to Cheney than Bush. Consider: He is barely alive, his soul having been split up and invested in objects (oil, Halliburton, you name it), he plots from secret places, and his name causes almost as much trepidation as He Who Must Not Be Named.

Actually, it is seductive to recast all the villlians: Alberto Gonzales, the smug toad-like bureaucrat without a conscience as Dolores Umbridge; Richard Lugar, the arch-conservative initially gung-ho for the Iraq plan until it started to get messy as Lucius Malfoy; Ann Coulter's insane and evil devotion to neo-conservatism as Bellatrix Lastraunge's insane and evil devotion to Voldemort....see how easy it is? Now you play!

Sadly, the one person missing from the equation is our version of Harry. Will no one step up to the role?

http://www.thoughtcrimes.org/s9/index.php?/archives/2007/07.html