It Used To Be the Race Card, Now It's the Fear Card. When Will Fear Strike Out?

Out Big Brother Bush, the King of Fears and his ghastly embraced alter-ego, Goldstein!

Whatever happened to FDR's "Four Freedoms" which included "Freedom from Fear?" Sounds like a good campaign slogan to me.

Consider the recent incident in Beantown where the local authorities freaked out because of "unknown devices" that were (finally) found throughout the city. As most of us know now these "light bright devices" were simply a movie promo. Now I ask you, if you were going to put any sort of destructive device anywhere, would you create one that lights up at night? Sorry but the logic of doing this totally escapes me. But the logic of partially shutting down a major city due to what basically translates to a minor prank does not. Why is it that after these "devices" had been in plain sight for over 3 weeks, did the bean-head authorities choose to react so radically? The answer is simple, and I don't believe for a minute that it has anything to do with stupidity, more to the point I believe it was a calculated action to promote more fear. Hey if two guys can run around a major city, putting up these things, just think what terrorists with a plan could do!!! Better run and hide under your beds Mr. & Ms. America!!!

And what ends up happening? The city of Boston is rewarded millions of dollars by the movie's producers. What a deal eh?

We take control of our own destiny by prevailing upon Congress to cut off all funding for the Iraq war, then to impeach President George Bush, after which he's sent off to the International Court of Criminal Justice, there to be tried for his crimes against humanity, whereupon empire collapses. And then? It'll be up to us.

When I was a kid, the Communists were coming to get us, or were going to turn us all into crispy critters with big scary bombs. (Communists did eat babies, didn't they?)

By the time I reached college age, I was hoping that the Communists would hurry up and get it over with. The fear switch had been clicked off and the annoyance switch had been thrown on.

Today, in the information age, annoyance has come much faster. I was annoyed around the time of the duct-tape orange alert. That craziness was just too much like "notebook paper over the head will protect you from fall-out b.s of yesteryear."

I have talked with people who are afraid because the TeeVee tells them that everyone else is. Surely everyone else can't be wrong. Right?

Well, here's the deal. Americans aren't nearly afraid as they think they are, at least not of Al Qaeda.

I can honestly say that my pulse hasn't been quickened once, by Osama, since the anthrax attacks, which he had nothing to do with. (The fact that we still don't know who tried to assassinate two U.S. senators and don't seem to care does bother me.)

I just wish that one of the plethora of presidential candidates would stand up and tell the damn truth:

That the government cannot protect us from every foreign nut-job who might want to do us harm, simply because we are Americans, and they hate our government's foreign policy not to mention our ever-present corporate sociopaths. The government cannot even protect us from our home-grown nut jobs.

The real patriots and courageous Americans are the ones who say, "Give me liberty or give me death."

Of course, we want a government that does its best to protect us from all kinds of unseemly characters, many of whom are right here, in the USA. We also want a government that abides by the law, because one that doesn't is far more dangerous than any foreign power.

It would be even better if our government would cease and desist from making matters worse and/or allowing their corporate donors to make matters worse, with economic hit-men and the like.

I want a president who will stand up and say, Yes, we may well get hit again. People who have never hated us before sure as hell do now. That number would include people in every nation on the planet.

The fact is that terrorism has been around for has long as mankind has been around. We will never end it, especially with another form of it. The very idea is silly in the extreme.

Americans are waking up, more every day, and realizing that they aren't all that afraid after all and trying to figure out who scared them so badly, or told them that everyone else was terrified, therefore they should be.

Adrenalin is stupid juice. Just like other forms of stupid juice, it wears off, and loses its effect after awhile.

Which bring me to a story, which may or not be illuminating.

My mother, rest her soul, was terrified of spiders. Yep, full blown phobia. I once watched her hurl a National Geographic magazine all the way across the living-room, and damn near faint, because there was a fold-out of a Tarantula in it.

I was forever pretending to kill granddaddy long-legs and helping them escape, as a kid.

One night at the local roller rink, a kid dropped a rubber spider on mother from behind. Poor kid did not expect what he got. I imagine he expected a squeal or something like that. What he got was back-handed so fast it made everyone's head swim. Mother didn't even realize what she had done. The kid was shocked into drop-jawed silence and Dad's head sum with with visions of lawsuits.

I think the kid received an object lesson in life. Don't scare people, unless you desire to bring out the very worst in them, and are ready to receive the brunt of that adrenalin rush.

That is a every good lesson for Junior and Vice and anyone else who wants to stir fear in people.

I can't help but wonder why it is those people, not all of course, who seem to be the most fearful and gullable when it comes to this administration's sucessful attempts to foster the "fear card", are those people who are most religious, and/or most ignorant. I am not implying that ignorance and religiosity go hand in hand, but you would think that they would place their safety in the hands of God to keep them safe, not the government ability to destroy their so called enemies. Around the world people see Bush as the biggest terrorist, not bin Laden. Americans have for too long basked in their arrogance and ignorance, and their religious faith (which doesn't appear to do anything for them).
Live free or die.....free from fear is what the government is supposed to work towards, not whipping up fear as a political tool.
SV

Did they break into our embassy and take hostages again? Or did we break into Iran’s consular offices and take them hostage this time? Iran is enriching nuclear fuel, so what? So is every nation around them China, Pakistan, Russia and India what makes Iran’s goals so special? But they might build a bomb! Yes they might but they say they won’t and if they do so what it’s a little late in the game to start behaving like this. This was all warned about it the 1950’s so we set up a nonproliferation treaty did Iran sign it? Yes they did, did India? Yes they did but they renounced it, well then since they renounced the treaty the US won’t have any nuclear dealings with them right? Sure we will, why not? Why George Bush is going to trade them enriched nuclear fuel for mangos.

Strange isn’t it Iran signs the treaty and follows the rules and yet is vilified in the western press India renounced the treaty and gets a deal to buy enriched nuclear fuel from the US. Why would India want to but nuclear fuel from the US if they can make their own? Because it doubles their capacity to make weapons grade plutonium, freed from the need and pretext of a civilian program India will be able to build ten to twelve bombs a year each bomb with a warning label (some components made in the USA). But George is a tough taskmaster we don’t just trade nuclear fuel for fruit without strict controls. The US not international but the US inspectors can inspect up to 2/3rds of India’s reactors.

2/3rds of India’s reactors, wanta guess who gets to choose which reactors get inspected? Just shut up and eat your mangos, India is way different from Iran. Those Iranians are crazy! Even though they haven’t been at war in over twenty-five years they’re nuts! Now India they’re a nice peaceful people and yes they are in a perpetual state of war with arch rival nuclear Pakistan. But the US has worked with our friends the Pakistanis to promote peace by breaking up Pakistan’s covert nuclear program and giving them advanced jet fighter aircraft in the bargain. Now that’s diplomacy that’s spreading democracy well, maybe not democracy but its diplomacy sure the ruler of Pakistan is a General who took over in a coup de tat but the lesson is clear. Play ball with America and we will supply you with advanced weapons for peace.

So what makes Iran so different? They’ve opened up their facilities for umpteen inspections by the IAEA and are given a clean bill of health every time. Yet after every round of inspections instead of relief the politicians ratchet up the rhetoric. What make Iran so much more a nuclear threat than say Pakistan? What are you crazy? Iran threatened to wipe Israel off the map? So, it’s about Israel? Isn’t Israel under the US nuclear umbrella? Doesn’t Israel have 200 of their own nuclear weapons? Are you saying Iran is threatening to commit nuclear suicide? Or could it be that politicians say a lot of stupid things to get elected? Like calling other countries axis of evil and threatening regime change now that’s dangerous talk I would worry about a country seeking nuclear weapons with that approach towards diplomacy. But Iran is an Islamic country! So is Pakistan so what. Iran might give nuclear technology to terrorist groups! Well if they try that we’ll just give them advanced jet fighters not to, just like we did with Pakistan. Realistically every nuclear nation sees its own weapons as a defensive weapon. The concept that a nation would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a nuclear weapon to just give away is laughable.

North Korea and Iran would be perfectly within their rights to develop a nuclear capability after a super power threatens them with regime change. Just as the Soviet Union felt threatened by Americas nuclear monopoly and Pakistan with India’s after all what did Israel do when they felt threatened by their neighbors but build nuclear weapons. If you as an individual were threatened by a fanatical neighbor perhaps you would go buy a gun not to kill him with but to protect yourself with if attacked. Or maybe you’ll just give the gun away to an even nuttier neighbor in hopes that he will kill your enemy, nonsense.

So what is behind Iran’s desire for a nuclear program? Could it be that it fears the end to it’s oil exports in the next two decades? Could it be that it doesn’t want to use its oil domestically when it can export it for hard currency? Or does Iran feel targeted could it be they feel paranoid with their nearest neighbor attacked and occupied by a superpower?
A super power that hasn’t made veiled innuendos about them but has threatened them directly and is now has troops on their border and aircraft carrier battle groups off their coast. So what is behind Iran’s nuclear ambition? George W. Bush that’s what.

Same song second verse, now what would you do as the President of Iran? A superpower bully is threatening you when you’ve violated no laws. Well what do you do when you’re neighbor makes unreasonable demands on you? Do you just comply? Or do you say F—k off! So he calls the cops on you over and over how long until you tell the cops F—k off! Because it doesn’t matter if the Iranians comply with all demands the west will just make more demands. They must surrender completely or fight; Iran has made no demands on any one if left alone the crisis would simply evaporate.

But the worlds is right about one thing there is a mad man on the loose with nuclear ambitions and a religiously inspired dream to rule the world and remake the middle east to his own liking. He is a psychopathic serial killer if there ever was one and if we don’t stop him before he starts any more wars we are all responsible.

When I say we I mean we the whole world for the whole world will pay the price for failure. Many have compared this mad man with Hitler but it’s an unfair comparison Hitler wanted his German master race to rule the world George Bush just wants to rule the world for himself by himself personally because his Mommy and Daddy didn’t love him enough. The ultimate nuclear nightmare scenario a mad man with access to nuclear weapons.