we traded a bill of goods for our bill of rights

I heard part of an interview with Torture Memo Writer John Yoo last night, and kept waiting for the logical question: if it is legal in war time for a martial law government to strip us of our constitutional rights in the name of security, then how do we define the moment when the emergency situation is over and we regain our rights?
Or are our rights gone forever?
Vanished.
Disappeared.
(Kinda like our once "defined pensions" that we once considered a component of our "future compensation" in negotiating our service for 30 years.)
I wish the interview would have broached: Is this a legal "war"?
Or, When do we know this "war" is over, so we can resume our democracy?
What a bunco scheme.
America, this system gypped us.

A snippet of Auden with my Whine...

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.'
The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.'
Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.'
O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'